Picky bride Pavel Fedotov (1815-1852)

Description of Pavel Fedotov’s painting The Promiscuous Bride

Pavel Andreevich Fedotov painted the canvas The Promiscuous Bride in 1847. The canvas tells the viewer a whole story. This is aided by the deliberately prim atmosphere of the room, the unnaturally emotional expressions of the characters’ faces and a certain comicality of their positions.

In the center of the picture a middle-aged lady sits elegantly, her face showing considerate condescension and deceptive doubt. Her figure is slightly turned toward her interlocutor, who is holding her hand. This position indicates the woman’s extreme interest in the suitor, who is squatting in a kneeling pose to her. Her hands are reached by the unjuvenile hunchback, who is drawn into her face with a pleading look. He tries to see if it is possible that such a beautiful lady would agree to tie her fate to him.

Though he is dressed smartly - an expensive, perfectly tailored jacket hides his massive hump on his back - he still realizes how slim his chances of a successful resolution of the case are. But how wrong he is. The woman’s parents are watching the process; they are casting glances at her with evident impatience and hope. It seems that this bride is not the first suitor for her hand, and she has no choice. She is simply playing for time before she agrees to entrust her fate to this ugly old man, who, in a fit of emotion, has even dropped his shiny top hat and gloves on the floor.

The woman herself realizes the necessity of consent. Her face has a scarlet color. This betrays the abundance of makeup she has applied to her face before the groom’s reception. The powder and thick blush on her cheeks are intended to conceal the age changes on the bride’s face and to draw attention away from her dry, aging skin.

The author of the painting elegantly emphasized the resemblance of the future spouses. Just as the bridegroom is disgusting on the outside, his stuck-up, selfish wife is black on the inside. Together they seem to form a perfect union.