Lot 2268 Dα

Franz Adam was the second son of the painter Albrecht Adam (1786-1862). He was apprenticed to his father and worked alongside him throughout his life. Albrecht Adam was one of the most famous battle and horse painters of his time in the German-speaking world, and it was also this genre to which Franz Adam devoted his life.

Both painters were true chroniclers of historical events. Franz Adam took part in the campaign of 1849 in Northern Italy and travelled the battlefields of Hungary in 1850 on commission from Emperor Franz Joseph. For him he painted the battles of Custozza and Temesvár as well as several life-size equestrian portraits. In 1859 he again took part in the Sardinian War in Northern Italy and then settled in Munich, where he painted, among other things, his famous picture "Retreat of the French from Russia" (today in the Alte Nationalgalerie Berlin).

The present painting, or sketches and impressions for it, is likely to have been executed by Franz Adam during the Hungarian campaigns. The characteristic flat plain seems to speak for this, but also the houses in the background and the clothing of some figures.