After its original purchase after exhibition in 1922, this painting had been in the hands of the same family. It made its reappearance at auction in June 2010, making its first public appearance in eighty years. Vasya is a portrait done in Petrov-Vodkin’s unique style, in which the smooth face and penetrating gaze created a feeling of serenity. The limited palette is also reminiscent of the artist’s tendency to paint in an almost Byzantine manner. As a close interior portrait, the painting does not, however, illustrate the artist’s technique of “spherical perspective,” in which the viewer can sense the curve of the earth on the horizon.