Portrait of E. A. Panchenko

Taras Shevchenko. Portrait of Elisha A. Panchenko (?). Stained paper, an Italian and a white pencil (28.6 × 25.2 cm). [16.IX 1857]. Taras Shevchenko National Museum, inv. g – 817.

One of four portraits by T. H. Shevchenko on the boat while traveling from Astrakhan on the Volga in Nizhny Novgorod in 1857, stored in A. A. Sapozhnikov.

About the portrait of E. A. Panchenko Shevchenko recorded in diary from September 17, 1857:

"Yesterday I managed to nothing. In the morning began to paint a portrait of E. A. Panchenko, home medical of Sapozhnikov. Do not have time to make the contours as we were called to breakfast. After breakfast I went to the captain's cabin determined to continue this portrait, then started to open up over the mountain city of Cheboksary… When we hid from the picturesque dirty Cheboksary, I again took up portrait. But started sluggishly, reluctantly. Began to finish it, and finish, of course, bad".

As a portrait of Panchenko first published by M. I. Matsapura ["Unpublished pictures of Shevchenko", "Soviet Art" from 17.III 1949, № 11].

Storage areas: property of A. A. Sapozhnikov family, G. Ja. Kuuzik, Gallery of pictures Shevchenko, Kharkiv.

N. P. Prokopenko

After publication: Taras Shevchenko Complete Works in 10 volumes. – Kyiv: ed. Academy of sciences of UkrSSR, 1963, v. 10, № 12 (image), p. 10 – 11 (note).