Nadezhda

A dark-haired woman in a loosely draped white tunic trimmed with embroidered braid sits with one hand resting on a ledge and the other in her lap, a red-and-black patterned scarf wound around her head. Behind her, a panel painted in bright orange, red, and white shows a stylized rider on a rearing horse beside another horse's head, in a flat, toy-like folk style unlike her own naturalistic rendering.

Her face, hands, and drapery are modeled with soft academic shading and warm flesh tones, while the backdrop is painted in flatter, more graphic strokes of saturated orange and white. The clash between the calmly lit, three-dimensional figure and the decorative, cartoonish imagery behind her creates a striking, enigmatic contrast of moods.