Abandoned

Christian Adolphe Schreyer 1828 - 1899

Summary

Christian Adolphe Shreyer travelled extensively in Russia, Syria and North Africa, and lived in Paris from 1862 until the Franco-Prussian War, when he returned to Germany. The events of that war may well have inspired Shreyer to create this harrowing painting, although the terrain suggests that it may be a Cossack subject. Horses were a favourite subject of Schreyer's; he is best known for his romantic paintings of Arab horsemen. Here, sombre colours accentuate the subject matter, the pity of war. The driver and one of the horses of a military wagon lie dead on the barren ground in the midst of a desolate landscape. The remaining horse, held fast by its harness, is slowly starving to death, whipped by a merciless wind.