10 masterpieces of Russian painting, which were worked on for up to… 40 years!

1. Viktor Vasnetsov. ‘Sleeping Princess’ – almost 40 years

Viktor Vasnetsov never finished one of his most famous fairy-tale paintings: for many years, it stood in his studio without a date or signature. He conceived the ‘Poem of Seven Tales’ cycle back in the 1880s and made the first sketches then. Vasnetsov worked on the painting from 1913 to 1917, when the country was shaken by civil war and the Bolshevik Revolution. The public saw ‘The Sleeping Princess’ only a year after the master’s death in 1927. And they were struck by its expressiveness and amazing Russian spirit.

2. Alexander Ivanov. ‘The Appearance of Christ Before the People’ – 20 years

Alexander Ivanov painted a huge canvas (5.4 x 7.5 meters) about the appearance of Christ during the baptism of people by St. John in the Jordan River from 1837 to 1857. Ivanov worked on it in Rome: He went to Italy as a pensioner of the Society for the Encouragement of Artists and returned to Russia only 28 years later to present the painting. Tsar Alexander II bought it for 15,000 silver rubles and the canvas became one of the first exhibits of the Rumyantsev Museum in Moscow.

3. Viktor Vasnetsov. ‘Bogatyrs’ – almost 18 years

Viktor Vasnetsov recalled that, in Vasily Polenov's studio, he recalled "an old thought", a painting depicting "shaggy mighty horses, a mighty trinity of heroes". It seemed that the instantly made sketch would quickly grow into a finished work. But no: Vasnetsov spent 11 years painting the Vladimir Cathedral in Kyiv. He took the unfinished ‘Bogatyrs’ with him, but there was no time for the painting. Only in 1894, when the artist settled in his own house in Moscow, was he able to return to work on this canvas. He finished it in 1898 and ‘Bogatyrs’ was immediately bought by patron Pavel Tretyakov.

4. Vasily Polenov. ‘Christ and the Sinner’ – 15 years

In 1857, Vasily Polenov was among the spectators who came to see the painting ‘The Appearance of Christ to the People’ by Alexander Ivanov. It was after this that the 13-year-old young man had a dream to create his own painting of Jesus. In the 1870s, he began to work on the first sketches. And, in 1881-1882, he went on a trip to Egypt, Syria, Palestine and Greece. Polenov spent another two years in Rome. And, after returning to Moscow, the artist created a full-length sketch. In 1886-1887, devoted to exclusively working on the painting. Polenov presented the canvas at an exhibition of the Peredvizhniki in St. Petersburg, where Tsar Alexander III saw it and immediately bought it.

5. Fedor Bruni. ‘The Brazen Serpent’ – 14 years

The fate of this painting is similar to the masterpiece by Alexander Ivanov. Officially, Bruni began working on it in 1827, although he had made preliminary sketches three years earlier. The artist painted it in Rome until the Summer of 1841 and then sent it to St. Petersburg a few months later. The gloomy Old Testament story about the people of Israel, to whom God sent poisonous snakes for their grumbling, delighted the public and even the tsar. Nicholas I bought the painting for 30,000 rubles.

6. Ilya Repin. ‘Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks’ – 11 years

“Gogol in colors” is what the artist was dubbed, after he presented this work to the public. Repin painted it for more than 10 years. In 1878, he learned of a legend according to which, in response to a letter from the Turkish Sultan Mahmud IV demanding immediate surrender, the Zaporozhian Cossacks wrote a caustic response. He immediately made the first sketch and then decided to study the history of the Zaporozhian Sich in more detail. Ilya Repin was interested in folk legends and often studied historical documents. And, finally, in 1891, he completed the painting.

7. Karl Bryullov. ‘The Foundation of Bakhchisarai’ – 11 years

This painting is dedicated to Alexander Pushkin. Bryullov was friends with the poet and was very upset about his death. Having conceived the idea of creating a painting in his memory, the artist chose the plot of the poem of the same name. Over the course of 11 years, until 1849, he created many sketches, choosing as a plot of the measured life of the khan's harem and its inhabitants – beautiful slave girls. 

8. Mikhail Nesterov. ‘Holy Rus’ – 6 years

The idea to depict Christ surrounded by revered Russian saints – Nicholas, Sergius and George, to whom pilgrims would go to – came to the artist in the second half of the 1890s. By 1900, Nesterov had created the final sketch and completed it in 1905. He himself said: “After this – at least to rest.”

9. Vasily Maximov. ‘All in the past’ – 4 years

After graduating from the Academy of Arts, Vasiliy Maximov worked as a drawing teacher in the village on the estate of Golenishchev-Kutuzov Counts. It was then that the idea for this painting came to him. More than 20 years passed from the conception to the creation of the painting. In 1885, Maximov painted his first sketches, inspired by the views of the estate garden on the banks of the Volkhov River and the house next door. Four years later, he began work on the painting and finished it in 1889. 

10. Vasily Perov. ‘Nikita Pustosvyat. Debate about Faith’ – 3 years

Vasily Perov chose a plot from the time of the Moscow Troubles. In 1682, after the death of Tsar Fyodor Alekseevich, the young tsars Peter and Ivan’s regent became their older sister, Tsarevna Sophia Alekseevna. At the same time, the Old Believers began to preach among the Streltsy. Their leader, priest Nikita Dobrynin, nicknamed ‘Pustosvyat’, came with his supporters to the Moscow Kremlin’s Palace of Facets, where a debate on faith took place in the presence of Tsarevna Sophia and Patriarch Joachim. The artist did not manage to finish the painting – he died in 1882.