Didn't expect? Yes, he retouched 'Didn't Expect' as well.
This topic became popular thanks to Mudrogel's memoir 'Fifty-eight Years in the Tretyakov Gallery'. From this book you can learn the following:
I remember all the details, because I myself suffered from it. When we acquired the painting 'Didn't Expect', there was a lot of talk about it. Artists and critics found that the face of the man returned from exile did not harmonize with the faces of the family. ... A few days later Ilya Yefimovich came to the gallery, this time with his paintbox and paints. As it happened, Tretyakov was not at home that day; he had gone away for a few days.
'It's a pity he's not here. Well, never mind. Give me a ladder; I must make a touch-up on the painting "Didn't Expect",' he said to me.
We knew that Repin was a close friend of Tretyakov and his whole family. But how could we permit a touch-up without the special permission of Pavel Mikhailovich? We were embarrassed. Repin immediately noticed our embarrassment and smirked:
'Don't worry. I spoke with Pavel Mikhailovich about the correction to the face in the painting "Didn't Expect". He knows what I intend to do.'
Well then, there was nothing to be done — we brought him the ladder, he put on a work smock, climbed up to the painting and quickly began to work. In less than half an hour the exile's head had been corrected.
But the artist did not stop there, and moved on to his painting 'Ivan the Terrible and His Son'.
'I'll just touch the paint on Ivan the Terrible's head a little bit.'
And indeed, he 'touched' it — so much so that the tone of the head changed significantly. Then — to our horror — we saw Repin carry his paintbox over to his third painting 'The Procession in the Kursk Province'...
'Here I'll add some dust. A crowd of a thousand is passing; dust rises in a cloud... And there isn't enough dust.'
And indeed, he added a lot of dust above the heads of the crowd. He 'dusted' the entire background.
That same evening, without seeing Tretyakov, he left for Petersburg and from Petersburg wrote to Tretyakov that he had made the corrections.
Tretyakov, seeing the corrections, was outraged to the utmost — he disliked everything Repin had done to the paintings.
For many days afterward, coming to the gallery each morning, he would stop in front of the paintings and begin to grumble:
'The paintings are ruined! The paintings are spoiled!' Repin wrote letters to Tretyakov, but Tretyakov did not reply. Finally, after several months, Repin came to Moscow specifically to clear up the misunderstanding.
Later the collector met with the artist and reproached him: 'You have, without permission, made alterations on three paintings that do not belong to you. I do not like the face of the former exile. And these are not my paintings; they are a national possession, and you had no right to touch them, even if you are the author.'
'You already, of course, know that yesterday I was in your gallery: I took care of what needed to be done in the painting "Ivan the Terrible", finally corrected the face of the figure entering in the painting "Didn't Expect" (now, it seems to me, like this) and touched the dust a little in "The Procession" — it was too bright.' And five days later Pavel Tretyakov wrote in reply: 'I noticed the corrections in your paintings very much; it seems they did not spoil them. The most useful correction is in the skull of the dying tsarevich.'
This is the kind of historical anecdote that comes from citing a single source. I was interested in getting to the bottom of the matter.
Вот к таким историческим анекдотам приходит цитирование единственного источника. Мне было интересно разобраться в теме.
