Ilya Efimovich Repin was still a promising student of Ivan Nikolaevich Kramskoy, when his future wife had already posed for him for paintings, drawings and sketches. Vera Alekseevna Shevtsova, the daughter of Alexey Ivanovich Shevtsov, a teacher of drawing and drafting at the Peterhof Lapidary Factory, was nine years old. Later, when Vera turned 16…