Lot 261: Benjamin Zix (French, 1772-1811)

oil on paper laid down on board

50.8 x 65.8 cm.

In 1792 Benjamin Zix enlisted in the German Rhine army where General Balthasar von Schauenburg employed him as a war artist. He also designed the decorations of the Triumphal Arch in Strasbourg for the celebrations of Napoleon's entry into the city in 1805. At this occasion his talents were recognised by Vivant Denon, the director of the imperial museums in Paris. For the next five years Denon and Zix travelled to all the major battlefields as historians recording the napoleonic conflicts. Zix made numerous drawings of which examples can be seen in the museums of Paris, Strasbourg and Mulhausen. Their travels took them to Italy where Zix died in Perugia in 1811.
The present lot is a rare example of his use of oils and the immediacy with which this composition was executed would suggest that it may record an actual conflict.