The writer Anton Pavlovich Chekhov came to St. Petersburg in the winter of 1895 at the insistence of the editor and publisher of the newspaper “Novoye Vremya” (New Times), Aleksey Suvorin, even though he had already settled near Moscow — in Melikhovo. So that the writer could work productively in St. Petersburg, Suvorin agreed to provide him with his own office in an apartment in Ertelev Lane (now Chekhov Street, 6). Chekhov probably met the young artist Nikolay Kravchenko, who also collaborated with the newspaper “Novoye Vremya”, on February 8, 1895, during a charity masquerade at the Mariinsky Theater. The masquerade was organized by the Society for Stage Actors in Need.

According to the memoirs of Fyodor Fiedler, a teacher and founder of a private literary museum in St. Petersburg, Chekhov sat for Kravchenko in the Suvorins’ apartment in Ertelev Lane,

Before his illness worsened in 1897, Anton Chekhov visited St. Petersburg quite regularly, often coming several times a year.

The portrait of the writer rather looks like a study, painted from life very quickly. It is especially interesting because it depicts Chekhov without his pince-nez, a traditional feature of his appearance. Kravchenko subsequently worked on other portraits, but he gained popularity as a war artist, traveling to theaters of military operations. In early 1902, Kravchenko went to Manchuria and China to gather material for his illustrations of the Russian army’s campaign in 1900–1901. During the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905, the artist went to the Far East, where he witnessed the destruction of the battleship Petropavlovsk.