Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks

Repin worked on this painting for twelve years. In 1676 the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed IV demanded the Zaporozhian Cossacks submit to his rule. They drafted a reply so creatively obscene it became folk legend, calling him the unbegotten son of the Devil and the Sultan of the swine. The painting shows the moment the letter is being composed, every Cossack offering his own contribution and laughing at the previous one. Tsar Alexander III bought it for a record sum. Now at State Russian Museum, Saint Petersburg @rusmuseum