Portrait: Tchaikovsky in His Final Year

A Look Into the Composer's Soul

This portrait of Tchaikovsky was painted in January of 1893, eleven months before his death. At the time, he was about to begin his 6th (and final) Symphony, the Pathetique. It was painted by Nikolai Kuznetsov, a member of The Peredvizhniki (“The Itinerants”), a group of artists who traveled throughout Russia capturing scenes from the lives of ordinary …