Osip Braz, Portrait of A. P. Chekhov (1898)

Copies of Antosha & Levitasha are available at the National Portrait Gallery Bookshop in London in conjunction with the gallery’s exhibition Russia and the Arts: The Age of Tolstoy and Tchaikovsky (March 17 to June 26, 2016). The exhibition includes Osip Braz’s portrait of Anton Chekhov. Isaac Levitan played an important role both in convincing Chekhov to agree to sit for the painting, which was commissioned by Pavel Tretyakov, and in convincing Tretyakov to accept the final painting as a suitable likeness. Chekhov himself told a friend that the portrait made him look like he had just inhaled a lot of horseradish.