person
Sofia Petrovna Kuvshinnikova
Kuvshinnikova
also: Софья Петровна Кувшинникова, Софья Петровна, Sofia Petrovna, S. P. Kuvshinnikova
A Moscow physician's wife and amateur painter who kept a well-known salon for writers, artists, and musicians with her husband Dmitri Pavlovich Kuvshinnikov; remembered above all as the close companion of the landscape painter Isaac Levitan. In 1892 she became, by report, the acknowledged model for the painter-heroine of Chekhov's story "The Grasshopper" ("Poprygunya"), an association that reportedly cost Chekhov the friendship of both Kuvshinnikova and Levitan for a time -- a later development unrelated to her warmer appearances in the 1888 correspondence.
Reading notes
- To S. P. Kuvshinnikova, 25 December 1888. Moscow. §3 dear Sofia Petrovna
The letter's addressee, Sofia Petrovna Kuvshinnikova, a Moscow physician's wife and amateur painter who kept a well-known salon for writers, artists, and musicians; as far as the surviving correspondence in this corpus shows, this is the first letter Chekhov addressed to her. Background only, not reflected in this letter's warm and playful tone: she is remembered above all as the close companion of the landscape painter Isaac Levitan, and in 1892 -- four years after this note -- became, by report, the acknowledged model for the painter-heroine of Chekhov's story "The Grasshopper" ("Poprygunya"), an episode that reportedly cost Chekhov the friendship of both Kuvshinnikova and Levitan for a time. Nothing of that later rupture is anticipated here.
- To L. S. Mizinova, 20 June 1891. Bogimovo. §5 Sofya Petrovna
Sofia Petrovna Kuvshinnikova, the Moscow salon hostess and amateur painter closely associated with Levitan, here thanked by Chekhov for an invitation.