Provenance: Virginia Giacometti Collection, Italy.

Publication: Plamena Dimitrova Racheva, Boris Georgiev of Varna, Ed. Kibea, p. 76 e 132.

During his stay in India, Boris Georgiev created a gallery of portraits of ordinary people. With his profound intuition, his art became the means of revealing the psychology of these humble and spiritually rich individuals. He worked "from life" and usually applied the "most modest" technique: drawing in colour pencils or sanguine ex tempore. He later painted some of the portraits, using his characteristic fresco technique, but on wood or fibreboard instead of walls. He made a complex and interesting combination of paints and primer for dry fresco, to be used in the so-called "wet fresco". Similarly to the ancient masters and artists of the East, he made his paints himself from mineral or earth pigments, powdered minerals and semi-precious stones. His paintings thus acquired the noble and lasting glow of natural paints and their unmatchable colours.
This ancient principle was applied by the Lamaists and Buddhists for their sacred books. For the letters and the decoration, they used pigments made of seven components: gold, silver, iron, copper, pearl, emerald, and ruby. They also used a plastic primer in the books, sometimes with bas-relief technique for the covers and even for some of the illustrated pages.
A traditional Indian instrument, the vina is usually used for the performance of popular melodies in India. It express authentically the Indian's deepest emotions. Boris Georgiev was unique in his ability to embody the music in the lines of his drawing, to express the mystery of noble spirituality and to lead the viewer into deep contemplation.
A second version of this portrait, executed in the same technique and measuring 52x42 cm, also exists; it has never been exhibited.