Grigorii Grigor'evich Gagarin (1810-1893)

The above watercolours were painted by Gagarin in 1839-1840 when he travelled to the Caucasus following his friend Mikhail Lermontov. Gagarin's Caucasian period was probably the most prolific period of his artistic career. He drew numerous drawings and watercolours depicting battle scenes, Caucasian warriors and Russian soldiers as well as genre scenes of the life of people of the Caucasus. Most of these works were later reproduced as colour lithographs in the album series Le Caucase Pittoresque, (Paris, 1847-1859) and Scènes, paysages, moeurs et costumes du Caucase, (Paris, 1845-1846)