Early Life
Emily Shanks was born in Moscow, the second daughter of James Steuart Shanks and Mary Louisa Schilling. James arrived in Moscow in 1852 where he went into partnership with Swede Henrik Conrad Bolin to found the ‘Shanks & Bolin, Magasin Anglais’ (The English Shop). The shop was financially successful and the Shanks family led a comfortable life allowing the daughters the time and means to engage with the Moscow intelligentsia. Emily’s older sister Louise Shanks married Aylmer Maude and translated Tolstoy’s novels into English, these translations were published by the Oxford University Press and were considered the best translations of their day. Emily’s younger sister Mary was a friend of Tolstoy’s oldest daughter Tatyana, the visitor book records that both Emily and Mary were visitors to the Tolstoy family home.
Emily commenced her studies at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture around 1882 where she was instructed by prominent members of the Peredvizhniki: Vasily Polenov, Vladimir Makovsky and Illarion Pryanishnikov. In 1890 Emily is awarded a ‘large silver medal' by the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture for her painting ‘Reading a letter’. She graduated that year with the rank of ‘artist’.
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“... goodness is of a modest nature, easily discouraged, and when much elbowed in early life by unabashed vices, is apt to retire into extreme privacy, so that it is more easily believed in by those who construct a selfish old gentleman theoretically, than by those who form the narrower judgments based on his personal acquaintance.”
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