The work of one of the most prominent Russian and Soviet artists of the early twentieth century, Boris Mikhailovich Kustodiev (1878-1927) is known to everyone who is even slightly interested in the painting.
Many his pictures of folk life have not lost relevance: let’s mention for example "Merchant's Wife at Tea" (1918), a reproduction of which for decades decorated a variety of boxes and packaging, advertising successfully tea, candy, cookies and other goodies.
B.M.Kustodiev is also known as the wonderful master of portrait. He painted a portrait of Alexander I, Nicholas II, F.I. Shalyapin, M.O.Voloshin et al. Less known, but no less interesting is the "paired" portrait of young physicists N.N. Semenov (1896-1986) and P.L. Kapitza (1894-1984).
... One spring evening in 1921 a good friend of the family Kustodiev young engineer-architect Peter Ivanovich Sidorov visited the painter with two friends - Nikolai Semyonov and Pyotr Kapitsa. Funny jokes and tricks young men quickly gained the sympathy of those present. Realizing that fate has brought them a great artist who created portraits of many celebrities (Boris Mikhailovich was just finishing the portrait of Chaliapin), they jokingly suggested Kustodiev "Well, you are already painting the portraits of famous people. And why not paint a portrait of future celebrities? "Boris just jokingly asked young people if they will become Nobel laureates, and immediately received a positive categorical response. After that Kustodiev assenting raised his hands and promised to write a double portrait of future Nobel laureates.
Seriously ill, semi-paralyzed artist could not go in the Physico-Technical Institute, to write a portrait in a familiar environment for young scientists and, therefore, to emphasize that they belong to science, asked them to pose with some instrument. And such a device in the portrait appeared: N.N..Semenov carefully holding it in your hands. What is this device - there are different versions. Some (usually critics) think that this X-ray tube, the other (usually scientists) categorically state that this is the usual moonshine. Looking at the smiling faces of fellow physicists, willingly accept the latest version.
The physics liked the portrait very much, and because by the time the money meant much less food, Pyotr Kapitsa as a fee for the painting artist brought two pounds of flour and a cock in the bargain - all he has earned from a farmer whom he built in the courtyard his own-designed turbine.
Many years Kapitza and Kustodiev kept warm relations: a young physicist for a long time, working from the famous Rutherford in Cambridge, regularly sent to the artist scarce at that time paints, so he could do what he likes.
The physics kept their work- both eventually became Nobel laureates (N.N..Semenov in 1956, and P.L.Kapitza - in 1978).
At the moment, this portrait as a precious relic is kept by the descendants of Kapitza, a copy of which in the 60s of the last century Petr Leonidovich presented N.N..Semenov with an inscription on the back of "Portrait is well-preserved, and we became very old. But inside we both are just as young and stupid as it looks in the portrait. "
Maybe that's an amazing sense of humor and humanity have allowed scientists to both live a long and eventful life of bright events. And it all began with a playful promise to famous Kustodiev ...