Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks

Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks is an oil painting by the Ukrainian-born Russian realist painter Ilya Repin, worked on from 1880 to 1891. It depicts a legendary 1676 episode in which Zaporozhian Cossacks compose an insulting written reply to a demand for submission from the Ottoman sultan Mehmed IV. The canvas measures 203 by 358 centimeters. Repin researched the subject by making study drawings in several Ukrainian locations and consulting the historian Dmytro Yavornytsky. The primary version was bought by Tsar Alexander III for 35,000 rubles and now hangs in the State Russian Museum in Saint Petersburg; a second, unfinished version by Repin is held in the Kharkiv Art Museum in Ukraine. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/