It is commonly believed that the painting presented in the museum is just a sketch of the famous artwork stored in the Tretyakov Gallery. But in fact, this is the artist’s rendition of the original, which Ilya Repin performed 25 years later, in 1909, by order of banker Stepan Ryabushinsky.

The canvas shows the scene of Tsar Ivan the Terrible murdering his eldest son Ivan. The royal chambers, the walls, the floor covered with Persian carpets, the dais for the throne and the overturned throne are made in a wide palette of red colors — from scarlet to dark red. It seems that the whole space is flooded with blood after the terrible event. A broken scepter with an orb and an overturned throne lie on the floor as symbols of the insignificance of power in front of a personal family tragedy. On the left, in the chambers, a woman is seen, probably a maid, who caught what happened. She watches this scene with horror. The tsar is depicted with his mouth half open, he is overcome with remorse and grief after having an attack of unrestrained rage. The viewer is faced with a stumbled father, not a formidable autocrat.

The work from the collection of the Voronezh Regional Art Museum differs from the original version in several aspects. The historical painting “Ivan the Terrible and His Son Ivan” displayed in the Tretyakov Gallery is impressive in size — 199.5 × 254 centimeters. The artist’s 1909 rendition is several times smaller. The 1885 painting is colder and more restrained in colors, the second version is brighter. A witness appears in the background of the late work, adding more genre elements. Researchers talk about the consonance of the painting with the works of Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky, who explored the dark depths of the human psyche.

In Voronezh, the painting survived the evacuation during the Great Patriotic War, and then returned to the permanent exhibition. In addition to it, the museum’s collection contains several graphic works by Ilya Repin.