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This painting was acquired on March 28, 2015 at the German auction
house "Bergmann". Its auctioneer ascribed it to the well-known Munich
battle and horse artist Albrecht Adam (1786-1862) and gave it the title
"Berittene Krim-Tataren auf einer Anhöhe" (English: "Mounted Crimean
Tatars on the hill"; see our image nr.20). However, the persons depicted
in this painting are in no way "Crimean Tatars" but Bashkir Cossacks
who were participating in the Foreign Campaign of 1813/14 on the
territory of Germany and France. Here, they are accompanied by several
Don Cossacks (one of them is the frontal officer in blue uniform visible
with his back to the viewer; three other Don Cossacks (with lances) can
be seen at the right edge in the background).
While we refer to these warriors as Bashkirs, they could have well
beeen Kazakhs ("Kirghiz-Kaisaks"), (non-Crimean) Tatars, or even
Kalmyks. As early as 1812, at the beginning of the Russo-French
(Patriotic) War, Russia saw the formation of several dozens of Cossack
regiments that were recruited from ethnic Bashkirs, Kazakhs and Tatars
populating the Orenburg, Saratov, Vyatka and Perm gubernias, as well as
Kalmyks from Volga steppe region. Each of these regiments counted 500
riders and 30 staff members.
First, these regiments fought against the Napoleonic Army in Russia,
then (in 1813 and early 1814) - on the territories of Poland and German
states and finally (in late spring of 1814) - in France.
In autumn 1813, they participated in various combats and major battles
(among others, in the battles of Dresden and Leipzig; we assume that the
group depicted in this painting is shown on the bank of river Elbe by
Dresden).
We would like to add that we are in possession of several other
paintings and prints with Bashkir Cossacks.
As for the possible authorship, we totally disagree with the
"Bergmann" auctioneer who ascribed the painting to Albrecht Adam. On the
contrary, with almost 100% certainty, it is a work of another Munich
horse and battle artist, who was working at the same time as Adam, and
who (alike Adam) was often depicting Russians in Anti-Napoleonic Wars.
His name was Peter von Hess, and he was the author of a similar
scene with Bashkirs in Germany of which he made several variations
(variously sized) - see our images nr.11-12. Similarly, a comparison
with von Hess's other works strongly supports
this attribution.
Creator Dates: 1792 Dusseldorf - 1871 Munich
Nationality: German