Barge Haulers on the Volga

Ilya Repin rendered this Barge Haulers on the Volga between 1870 and 1873, depicting eleven men dragging a barge upstream against the current. Bound in leather harnesses and dressed in rags, they strain under heavy sun, nearly collapsing from exhaustion. The scene came from Repin's 1870 holiday on the Volga, where he made oil studies of actual laborers.

Each figure is based on real people Repin came to know. A young man in the center fights against his bindings, taking on a heroic pose amid the defeated older workers. The subjects include a former soldier, a former priest, and a painter. Repin had difficulty finding models willing to pose, as folk belief held that an image could steal one's soul.

The painting won a prize in 1872 and launched Repin's career when shown at the Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg in 1873. Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich purchased it, and it toured Europe as a landmark of Russian Realism. After the 1917 Revolution, it moved to the State Russian Museum in Saint Petersburg.