The Unequal Marriage - Vasili Pukirev, 1862

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The Unequal Marriage - Vasili Pukirev, 1862

She is 17. He is 70.

This is a wedding ceremony in a Russian Orthodox church. The bride stands at the altar in white, extending her right hand toward the priest while the elderly groom stands beside her. She is not looking at him. The priest reads the vows. She stares past him.
Behind her, a young man stands with his arms crossed, jaw set, eyes locked on the groom. He is not a guest.
He is Vasili Pukirev - the painter himself. His own fiancée had just been given to a wealthy older man the same way. He painted himself into the scene he could not stop.
Now look at the dark crowd behind the groom. There is a veiled female figure partially hidden behind him. Scholars have interpreted these shadowed background witnesses as the groom's previous wives - silent observers of yet another ceremony. Pukirev left no statement confirming this.

He originally painted the groom's real face - a recognisable public figure. The man complained. Pukirev changed it just enough. The bride's face he never touched.
When the painting was exhibited in 1863, contemporary accounts recorded that a number of arranged marriages were reconsidered or called off.
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