Lot 85

Ilja Repin (1844 - 1930) COSSACKS

Study drawing of the Zaporozhian Cossacks probably for the famous painting Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks. The painting relates to a historical event in which, in 1676, at the request of the Ottoman Turks to surrender, the Cossacks responded with a mocking and derogatory letter full of spicy insults. The figure in the foreground, with his hand outstretched in a gesture trying to attract attention, paradoxically did not make it on the painting in this form, but the figure turned with its back to us in a fur coat can be easily identified in the realised painting on the right.