Collection

Arab Horsemen Captured by Frenchmen

Artur Grottger

Basic information

ID: Г-I-170
Author: Artur Grottger
Name: Arab Horsemen Captured by Frenchmen
Date of creation: c.1850 (?)
Technique: watercolor
Material: cardboard watercolor
Dimensions (height x width, cm): 44 x 61

Additionally

Type: graphic art
Genre: narrative art
Provenance: Collection of Agenor Goluchowski

Information about author

Author: Artur Grottger
Artist's lifetime: 1837–1867
Biography: Artur Grottger was born in 1837 in the village of Otynevychi in the Lviv region (former Ottyniowice, Eastern Galicia). He studied at the Lviv School of Painting of Jan Maszkowski, and at the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow and Vienna (1852–1858). He is a leading representative of Polish Romanticism. He is known as a painter, periodical illustrator, graphic artist, and watercolorist. He is the author of six patriotic art cycles regarding the January Uprising against the Russian occupation of Poland of 1863, portraits, and local history materials. Artur Grottger died after a serious illness in Amélie-les-Bains, France, in 1867. He was buried in the Lychakiv Cemetery in Lviv (field No.95).

Object description

This is a multi-figure composition depicted against the background of an oriental-type architectural structure with a balcony to the viewer's right, and a white minaret with its top decorated with a crescent moon. Closer to the bottom left edge, one can see three Arab warriors shown near a spring of water. One of the warriors (in the middle) is holding a musket in his right hand. On their heads there are Arab turbans. Behind them there is the French cavalry with naked sabers riding brown horses and Arab riders in white robes. The horsemen of the French cavalry are decorated with white shoulder belts.

Inscriptions

In the right lower corner of the work there is an author's inscription "Arthur Grottger".

Arab Horsemen Captured by Frenchmen

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