Major’s matchmaking Pavel Fedotov (1815-1852)

Description of Pavel Fedotov’s painting The Major’s Matchmaking

The painting The Major’s Matchmaking is the most famous painting by the Russian artist Pavel Andreevich Fedotov. Its subject matter is closely related to real-life stories of the time.

Often impoverished nobles sought a marriage with the daughters of merchants, which allowed them to obtain a rich dowry. In this way, they exchanged their nobility for gold, while the merchants received good connections and generosity for their grandchildren. Naturally, there was no love involved; there was none on either side.

We see a similar picture from life in Fedotov. An officer-groom stands to the side, twirling a tight moustache and thinking of the rich kush he can get after the wedding. In the central background, the frightened and jolly bride, dressed in a rich pink and white dress (who is perhaps the only positive character in this picture), is trying to escape from her mother, who is authoritatively holding her daughter back.

Nearby stands the girl’s father, hurriedly buttoning his cloak and also contemplating his own benefit from the impending wedding. The matchmaker faces the father of the family and tries to hide the excitement of the bride. Nearby, the maid, watching ironically, prepares the room for the important guest. And only the kitten in the foreground is preoccupied with his important business, washing his face with a contented look and not thinking about the impending engagement.

Thus, the painting tells us about the simple "sale" of the girl, who was brought up, dressed up, and educated only to marry off profitably later. We understand that with this kind of approach a person becomes a thing. Recall the words of Ostrovsky’s famous wastrel Larissa: "I am a thing, a beautiful toy. Thing that you can if you want to sell and get from its sale of profits.

Contemporaries greeted the picture with approval, the leading newspapers of St. Petersburg, pointing to such marriage deals as a shameful stain on the morals of his time.