Differential diagnosis of the disease of the great Russian artist I. Repin

The year 2024 marks the 180th anniversary of the birth of the great artist Ilya Efimovich Repin, the brightest representative of the realist direction of academic art. The artist’s life was overshadowed by a disease that deprived him of the ability to work with his right hand. I.E. Repin, with an irresistible will to create, re-trained to paint with his left hand. Repin’s disease was not diagnosed both during his life and after his death. This article contains information about Ilya Repin’s disease and differential diagnosis with pathology, which can be followed by motor disorders of the hand and atrophy of the hand muscles. The conducted analysis, supported by literature and lifetime photographs, postmortem cast of the artist’s right hand indicate that the cause of Repin’s disease was a progressive ulnar neuropathy. The given historical information about the diseases of peripheral nerves indicates that this diagnosis could not have been established during the artist’s lifetime.