Karl Karlovich Piratsky

Appointed court painter by Emperor Nicholas I in 1836, Karl Karlovich Piratsky mainly worked in watercolour and the predominant theme in his oeuvre is the Russian military. He had a distinguished career and was made professor of the Imperial Academy of Arts in 1869.

This watercolour depicts members of the Pavlovsky Life Guards Regiment, an Imperial Guards infantry regiment hailed at the time for their heroic efforts in suppressing the Decembrist revolt of 1825. Their barracks in St Petersburg are visible behind them. The figure on horseback is likely Alexei Fedorovich Arbuzov (1792-1861), General of the Infantry and Commander of the Pavlovsky Regiment.

The present work comes from the collection of Georgy Evgenievich Klimov (1895-1967), a White Army officer who settled in Quebec City, Canada after the Second World War, where he owned an antique shop.

We are grateful to Sergey Podstanitsky for providing additional cataloguing information.