Подпись и дата слева внизу: монограмма / 1921

Working on a new staging of "The Snow Maiden" in 1921, Nikolay Roerich paints the characters of the Snow Maiden and Lel in a more generalized manner than before, but still filling them with Slavic symbols. Thus, the Snow Maiden no longer resembles a fairy-tale character; she looks more like a peasant girl. And the Lel's face features, whose image is based on the iconography of Krishna Venugopala (playing the flute), clearly indicate his eastern origin.

In his essay "The Apparel of the Spirit", the artist writes: "the legendary tale of "The Snow Maiden" shows a part of the genuine Russia in its beauty. Ostrovky, as a realist playwright, gave his inspiration to a fairy tale only once in his life. Rimsky-Korsakov gave "The Snow Maiden" the reserve of his young force. And the legend is convincing with its true epic. All elements of the influence on Russian can be seen in "The Snow Maiden". And the time of the tale – the poetic epoch of Slavs, who worshiped the forces of nature – creates a bright atmosphere of admiring the nature. We have some elements of the East: ...The character of the legendary shepherd Lel, so close to the image of Hindu Krishna. And finally, we have some elements of the North. Elements of forest charms. A kingdom of a shaman: the frost, wood goblins, the Snow Maiden... All the details of the Russian architecture and the entire Russian life determine the details of the clothes, and with the all-human cooperation, the all-human meaning is created".