Brief Biography-Gottlob Alexander Sauerweid was born in Courland, Latvia, part of Russia, in 1795. His family left for Dresden that year, where he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts. He quickly gained commissions and travelled to England via France, where he became established as a painter of battles. He was also a painter of horses, of which Napoleon commissioned many. Czar Alexander 1 awarded him the post of First Painter of The General Staff in Saint Petersburg in 1825, and he was Professor at the Imperial Academy in 1827. Alexander’s son Nikolay succeeded him as a painter of battles, and he achieved the designation Academician of Battle Art in 1860.