Russian man gets 2 ½ years in jail for vandalizing painting

A court in Moscow has sentenced a man to two and a half years in prison for vandalizing a famous painting by renowned Russian artist Ilya Repin.

The court on Tuesday found Igor Podporin guilty of damaging the painting, which depicts czar Ivan the Terrible cradling his dying son after striking him in a fit of rage.

The man attacked the painting with a metal stanchion at the Tretyakov Gallery in May last year. He claimed that he damaged one of the gallery’s most famous exhibits because he thinks it is historically inaccurate.

Repin’s 1885 canvas suffered several holes through it, but the faces of the czar and his son were undamaged. The restoration work is expected to take several more months.