Portrait of a Lady

Heinrich Matvejevich Maniser’s ‘Anna Karenina’I deliberately didn't take any books to read overseas with me because I didn’t want to weigh down my luggage (more room for souvenirs!). I thought, well, I have books on my iPhone, I can read those … forgetting that I would be saving my battery to use the Hipstamatic camera.

Anyway, eventually the time came when I was desperate to read something, (on the train to Marrakech from Fés) and I opened up one of my favourite books apps, Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina. I read until the battery was almost flat.

When I arrived home and pulled out my hard copy version, I was surprised and impressed at how much I had managed to read on that tiny little screen: about half the book. 

In an idle moment last night, I found myself wondering what Anna might have looked like. Had anyone painted a portrait of her? I was thinking Renoir, Manet, or John Singer Sargent. A quick search online turned up very little, and the most popular portrait of her was painted by Heinrich Matvejvich Maniser in 1904. I couldn't even find any information on him.

I also learned that there is a new film being planned, with Keira Knightley in the title role, and Jude Law entirely miscast as her husband, the unattractive Karenin who is 20 years older than his wife. Somewhere I read an opinion that she (Knightley) is not pretty enough to portray the dazzling Anna Karenina.

This painting by Sargeant suits my notions more: a languorous, seductive Anna enfolded in silks and cashmere, reclining on a settee.

John Singer Sargent’s ‘Nonchaloir’