The general flew into a rage, immediately purchased the portrait, and with a view to revenging himself on the artist, he offered the latter's master a huge sum for him.

Shevtchenko was so panic-stricken at the prospect of what awaited him, that he fled for aid to the artist Briuloff, entreating the latter to save him.

Briuloff told Zhukovsky, and Zhukovsky repeated the story to the Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, wife of Nicholas I.
Shevtchenko's master was ordered to stop the sale.

The Empress then commanded Briuloff to complete a portrait of her which he had begun, and she put it up as the prize in a lottery among the members of the imperial family for the sum of ten thousand rubles--the price offered for Shevtchenko by the enraged general.

Shevtchenko thus received his freedom in May, 1838, and immediately began to attend the classes in the Academy of Arts, and speedily became one of Briuloff's favorite pupils and comrades.
In 1840 he published his "Kobzar"[29] which made an impression in Little Russia.