The picture was under restoration for four years. The restorers and researchers who drew on the experience of previous generations of experts and used the most advanced equipment have made a significant step towards understanding the mechanism of destruction and replenishment of loss. Today the Tretyakov Gallery can at last announce the return of the picture into the halls where it will be displayed in the specially designed climatic anti-vandal capsule.

The exhibition presents Repin’s pictorial studies and sketches held by the State Tretyakov Gallery that reveal stages of the artist’s muse over images; the windows show archive materials telling the picture’s story, its display at the traveling exhibition, the censorship ban and the 1913 attack.

The history and stages of restoration throughout the XX-XXI centuries, including years of evacuation during the Great Patriotic War, are reflected in a wide range of archive documents, photomaps and a kind of contemporary photo-reports on the last phase of restoration after the 2018 attack.