Venetsianov Alexey is considered to be a founder of genre art in Russia. For the first time in Russian art peasant serves became the main characters of paintings.

The son of a Moscow merchant, a modest surveyor and later a postal worker, as an adult he began to study painting with the famous 18th-century artist V.L. Borovikovsky. Having earned the title of academician for one of his portraits, he retired and fully dedicated himself to painting. In 1818 the artist acquired the Safonkovo estate in Tver province where he created his best artworks.

In the 1840s the artist painted the work Reading the Cards which is now in the collection of Russian museum. A bit later he returns to the subject, repeating it. So, the second version of the painting was made, and it is now represented in the permanent exhibition of our museum.