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Maria Vasilievna Yakunchikova-Weber (Russian: Мария Васильевна Якунчикова-Вебер) (1870-1902) was a Russian painter, graphic artist, and embroiderer. In 1896, she married a doctor named L. N. Weber, and attached his name to hers from then until her death.

Yakunchikova was born in Wiesbaden, Germany and grew up in Moscow, where her family had numerous artistic connections. Beginning in 1883 she had private lessons in art with N. A. Martynov, and from 1885 she studied as an external student at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture; she took evening lessons with Elena Polenova between 1886 and 1889. Through these classes she met artists such as Isaac Levitan and Konstantin Korovin, among others. She was also associated with the Abramtsevo artists, especially her teacher Polenova, whose revival of traditional handicrafts inspired her to embroider and to execute pokerwork. Between 1887 and 1889 she began to collect folk art.

Columns in Vvedenskoye, 1894

Yakunchikova traveled to Austria and Italy in 1888; the following year she went to France and Germany, and from then on worked mainly in western Europe. From 1889 to 1890 she attended the Académie Julian in Paris, studying under William-Adolphe Bouguereau and Tony Robert-Fleury. In 1892 she began to create colored etchings. Polenova visited her in Paris in 1895. In 1897 she began to illustrate books; from the following year she also designed textiles and toys. Also in 1898 she was commissioned by Serge Diaghilev to design a cover for his magazine Mir iskusstva; this was an Art Nouveau image, with folk art stylings, of a swan in a forest pool, and ran in 1899, from which year Yakunchikova began exhibiting with the World of Art movement. This she continued until her death. In addition, she directed the embroidery workshop at Abramtsevo from her teacher's death in 1898, and planned an exhibition of folk art as part of the International Exhibition in Paris in 1900.

Yakunchikova suffered from tuberculosis, and died of the disease near Geneva in 1902.

References

• John Milner, A Dictionary of Russian and Soviet Artists 1420-1970. Woodbridge, Suffolk; Antique Collectors' Club, 1993.

Maria Yakunchikova web site: http://yakunchikova.com