The sixth and final volume of a six-part survey of the State Tretyakov Gallery gathers 835 studies, interiors and still lifes by 160 artists. This is what artists make when no one has commissioned anything. Anna Golubkina fills sheet after sheet with plants named precisely, the way a botanist would; Mikhail Vrubel paints lilacs and a bed with a checked blanket; Victor Borisov-Musatov sketches hospital wards and sleeping friends; Konstantin Korovin and Valentin Serov leave the kind of rapid study that usually stays in the studio. Rooms with the furniture under dust sheets, a window in the rain, a jug on a table. The working side of a great collection, where the finished pictures of the first five volumes began. Large reproductions, each with its painter, title and date.

Alexander Nemirov is the publisher of Aeneas Press. For The Gallery Masterworks he chose the plates and their order, checked the rights of every reproduction, and wrote the English captions and commentary.