Following the progress of Russian painting in the 18th and 19th centuries and its relationship with other European schools, from the foundation of the Imperial Academy of Arts in 1757 to the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881, this groundbreaking and richly illustrated study places Russian painters in their own art historical context, ending with Ilia Repin’s powerful Portrait of Modest Mussorgsky, shown at the Peredvizhnik exhibition in 1881.