The throngs of tourists jostling for a better view of the Mona Lisa have become so overwhelming that the Louvre is already planning to exhibit it in a separate space. Such obstacles are not encountered when viewing Ahinora, a painting of a woman with eyes as enigmatic as Mona Lisa's smile, created by one of Bulgaria's most prominent painters.

Painted in 1925 by Ivan Milev (1897-1927), Ahinora mesmerises with her oversized, green eyes: feverish and fixed with fear, amazement or curiosity about something or someone beyond the frame.

Milev was inspired by a text written in 1917 by Nikolay Raynov, an outstanding Bulgarian symbolist who channelled his frustration at his country's heavy losses in the wars of 1912-1918 into creating "medieval" legends with a strong patriotic twist. Raynov imagined Ahinora as a Slavic priestess who lived at a time when a new people were about to arrive and change history forever, the proto-Bulgarians. She caught the eye of Khan Asparuh, the Bulgar leader, and they married. However, when Asparuh was about to cross the Danube with his army to fight against the Byzantines and secure some new lands for his people, Bulgarian priests told him that he needed to sacrifice his most precious possession to ensure success. This, of course, was Ahinora.

It is unclear exactly what impressed Milev so much in Raynov's story. It could be Ahinora's tragic end on the stake, or lines such as: "So, here I am: I bring with me the scent of thousands of kisses, and among them, the allure of a sublime kiss – a deadly one: the kiss of fire!" It could be the anticipation of his own early death from the Spanish flu, or a real-life woman – possibly his wife, an opera singer whom he married in 1925.

The painting's rich details reference to medieval and 19th century Bulgarian embroidery, jewellery and icons, and Secession aesthetics: an artistic microcosm that unites Bulgaria's past and present into a single image. Combined with the uncertainty of Ahinora's eyes, which are fixed on the future, the artwork can be interpreted as a troubled meditation on Bulgaria of the 1920s. The times were indeed hard. After heavy losses in three wars, Bulgarian society reeled. A coup and a failed uprising in 1923 ignited two years of government-sanctioned killings and political assassinations that culminated in the Communists' bombing of St Nedelya Church in Sofia, in 1925. Ahinora was created in these times of political upheaval and violence.

Whatever the factual truth is, the artistic fact is that Milev created a portrait whose eyes do not follow you around the room; rather, they are imprinted on the back of your head and remain with you long after you have left the room.

Remarkably, for most of its existence, Ahinora's eyes had not seen a single person. Shortly before his death, Milev donated the painting to his birthplace, Kazanlak. It was then taken to the vaults of the town's art gallery. It remained there until 2023, when the gallery's young and ambitious manager, Plamen Petrov, decided it should be exhibited in its own space.

Kazanlak's city council agreed and converted a small modernist house into an art space. It opened in 2023: the world's only gallery dedicated to a single painting. A special room for temporary exhibitions provides further insight into the art and life of Ivan Milev.

Born into a wealthy farming family, Milev was deeply affected by the hardships and monotony of rural life. He had not yet graduated from high school when he was conscripted into the Bulgarian army during the Great War. He survived and dedicated the rest of his life to studying and creating art, developing an inimitable style that blended Secession and Bulgarian folk traditions. He painted portraits of the Bulgarian cultural elite, toiling or mourning peasants and highly stylised etchings of workers and revolutionaries with equal ease and honesty. Whatever the subject, the people he created look simultaneously hieroglyphic and humane, filled with internal drama, frozen in pathos. This is possibly why Milev is beloved by both professionals and ordinary Bulgarians. In 1999, his portrait appeared on the 5 leva banknote; it is still there today.

Ivan Milev's talent was widely recognised by his contemporaries. After his death, one of them, writer Sirak Skitnik (a pseudonym meaning Orphaned Vagabond), wrote: "Years will pass, and all of us will understand the true value of the gold he carried in his soul. And which he, with the magnanimity of a fairy-tale king, poured into his decorative visions. Bulgaria has hardly ever produced an artist with a richer inner life, with a more unrestrained creative power: it seems as if from the fertile black soil of our motherland grew strange flowers that brought to us the legend of the past and the fairy-tale of our present".

Ahinora is the ultimate amalgamation of Milev's artistic style and ideas: a single image of tragedy, beauty, passion and yearning. Do not miss the opportunity to meet her gaze and delve deeper into her enigma.