First of all I want to take the glass from him. Then ask: honey, what happened? The boy on this antique plate from our collection is looking ahead so sadly that the joke on the table above his head looks just idiotic and certainly not Rosh Hashanah. "The first cup is a stake, the second a falcon! " Apparently, we're supposed to be smiling here: a little man trying grown-up habits. But he plays his role with such seriousness that you don't want to smile at all. Before us is another faience plate with a composition based on a drawing by Elisabeth Boehm. Wavy edge, broad raised edge, reddish-brown color, lighter towards milky white center. All this frames a small scene: a table, a cup in a child's hand, another one next to it, a dark ladle. On the back of the plate there is a green stamp of a partnership of Sh Kuznetsov with a double-headed eagle. This type of mark makes it possible to date the pottery base to the years 1889-1917. Judging by the monogram M.O.F in the folds of the boy's shirt, the plate was probably produced in the Taber factory of M. S. Kuznetsov in the village of Kuznetsov, Tver district. For Elisabeth Böhm, the village children were not just convenient figures for pretty pictures. When she went in the summer to the family estate in the Yaroslavl district or to friends near Tousano, she took gifts for peasants and children: scarves, toys, ribbons. The children knew her and called her "Bumiha". The artist's friend, the writer Sofia Lavrentiva, recalled how after the distribution of the gifts, the painting began and the children willingly posed for pictures. This detail varies greatly: the person sitting in front of the artist was not a nameless "nature", but a familiar child, who had already received a toy, who had been spoken to, and was now asked to sit quietly for a while.

First of all I want to take the glass from him. Then ask: honey, what happened? The boy on this antique plate from our collection is looking ahead so sadly that the joke on the table above his head looks just idiotic and certainly not Rosh Hashanah. "The first cup is a stake, the second a falcon! " Apparently, we're supposed to be smiling here: a little man trying grown-up habits. But he plays his role with such seriousness that you don't want to smile at all. Before us is another faience plate with a composition based on a drawing by Elisabeth Boehm. Wavy edge, broad raised edge, reddish-brown color, lighter towards milky white center. All this frames a small scene: a table, a cup in a child's hand, another one next to it, a dark ladle. On the back of the plate there is a green stamp of a partnership of Sh Kuznetsov with a double-headed eagle. This type of mark makes it possible to date the pottery base to the years 1889-1917. Judging by the monogram M.O.F in the folds of the boy's shirt, the plate was probably produced in the Taber factory of M. S. Kuznetsov in the village of Kuznetsov, Tver district. For Elisabeth Böhm, the village children were not just convenient figures for pretty pictures. When she went in the summer to the family estate in the Yaroslavl district or to friends near Tousano, she took gifts for peasants and children: scarves, toys, ribbons. The children knew her and called her "Bumiha". The artist's friend, the writer Sofia Lavrentiva, recalled how after the distribution of the gifts, the painting began and the children willingly posed for pictures. This detail varies greatly: the person sitting in front of the artist was not a nameless "nature", but a familiar child, who had already received a toy, who had been spoken to, and was now asked to sit quietly for a while.

We don't know if the boy with the glass had such a living prototype. And we certainly do not know what his thoughtfulness means: awkwardness before an unusual activity, diligent imitation of his elders, or the mood that the viewer himself attributes to the painted faces.