Albrecht Adam (1786 Nördlingen - 1862 Munich) "The Fire of Moscow". Original title On a gentle hill overlooking the valley of the Moskva River, three French soldiers - an infantryman, an officer and a cuirassier (or dragoon) in a white riding coat - are engaged in a conversation, while on the right behind them two cuirassiers rest exhausted on the grass next to their fully loaded and saddled horses. In the background, the city silhouette of Moscow glows in the glowing red of the blazing flames and the soot-blackened sky effectively emphasises the extent of the raging inferno. A finely glazed and subtly nuanced, imposing depiction of the great fire of Moscow on the night of 14 September 1812, which the artist witnessed at close quarters. As a pupil of the battle painter Johann Lorenz Rugendas the Younger, he harboured the desire to experience war at first hand from an early age and therefore attended the battles of Aspern and Wagram as early as 1809. In 1812, he finally took part in the great Russian campaign from May to December as part of Napoleon's Grande Armée and as a travelling companion of Eugène de Beauharnais, the Viceroy of Italy. The impressions he gathered on the battlefields of Moshaisk, Borodino, Semlevo, Smolensk and Moscow, among others, were subsequently processed in a lithographic series of 100 sheets, which he produced in collaboration with his sons Benno and Franz Adam between 1827 and 1833 under the title "Voyage pittoresque et militaire de Willenberg en Prusse jusqu'à Moscou 1812". Individual protagonists from these works can also be seen in the present painting: "A French sentry" (panel 49) is depicted as an infantryman with a rifle and bayonet on the far left, while the soldier in a white coat on the right is borrowed from the motif "On the battlefield near Moscow on 8 September". Oil on canvas, relined. Signed and dated lower left. 1829. 43.5 cm x 54.5 cm. Frame. The present painting is presumably the painting "Der Brand von Moskau" (no. 1), which was exhibited at the XXVI Art Exhibition of the Royal Academy of Arts in Berlin in 1830 and is listed in Boetticher's catalogue under no. 16. Literature: Boetticher, Friedrich von: Malerwerke des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts, Dresden 1895, vol. 1, p. 14, no. 16. Oil on relined canvas. Signed and dated 1829.