Rückert’s enamelled pieces often included painted enamel scenes after well-known Russian paintings. This kovsh reproduces a painting by Ilya Repin, The Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks of 1880–91 which recalls an imagined historical tableau when the Cossacks sent a reply to an ultimatum issued by the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire in 1676.

Acquired by Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother