Jerzy Kossak (1886 Kraków - 1955 there), Napoleon's retreat from under Moscow, 1927.

oil, canvas, 94.5 × 138 cm light frame
signed date l. d.: "Jerzy Kossak/27"

The vision of Napoleon in retreat from under Moscow is one of the most famous motifs in Jerzy Kossak's work. Jerzy Kossak began painting paintings dedicated to the Napoleonic epic around 1910. In the 1920s and 1930s he created the best works of this series, large-format, original, independently composed according to his own ideas.
The painting presented at the auction simultaneously depicts Napoleon's great defeat in the 1812 expedition to Russia. (to which the harsh Russian winter and the French soldiers' lack of preparation for these conditions contributed), as well as the memory of the memorable Victoria of the 1798 Battle of the Pyramids. "The vision of Napoleon in retreat from under Moscow with the head of the Sphinx reminiscent of the Egyptian victory of the "god of war", who now with his staff and against the backdrop of the endless colonne mourante of his troops is pulling west amidst blizzards, broken by winter and cold. " (K. Olszanski, Jerzy Kossak, Wroclaw 1992, p. 18). Analogous works are preserved in numerous private collections and in the National Museums in Krakow and Warsaw.