plaster plate, of octagonal form, the body with round medallion, decorated with the white moulded scene, the base bearing the Cyrillic inscription "Count Fedor Tolstoj 1819 three-day Battle of Krasnoje 1812", Ø 20,5 cm, Russia, 1819 (Ru)

"The Battle of Krasnoje, took place during Napoleon’s Russian Campaign, on 15.-18.11.1812. While the Russian Army was unable to cut off the retreat of the French after Smolensk, they inflicted heavy losses.

Lit.: Thieme-Becker, Leipzig, vol 33, p. 257: Count Fjodor Petrowitsch Tolstoi, (St. Petersburg 10.2.1783-13.4.1873); Russian medal maker, sculptor, painter, draughtsman, and etcher, originally an officer in the Russian Navy, 1802-1804 student at the St Petersburg Academy, 1809 honorary member, from 1825 lecturer, from 1842 Prof. at the Academy’s medal making class. He created numerous important reliefs and medallions, marble busts etc., now belonging to Russian museums, galleries, cathedrals, and private collections. Patriotic War 1812. 1828 vice president of the art academy, 1838 Professor.
Lit.: exhibition catalogue "Europa in Wien" the Congress of Vienna 1814/15, Unteres Belvedere and Orangerie, Vienna, 20.2.-21.6.2015. Werner Teleskop. 88, The "Wars of Liberation" against Napoleon and the "Battle of Nations" at Leipzig 1813, in a 20-part series of plaster reliefs, created by Fjodor Petrowitsch Tolstoi in the 1820s, p. 100, plate 53-57, 64, the allegorical, neoclassical tondo show the struggle of the Russians to liberate their country from Napoleon. Even J.W.Goethe recognised the artistic significance of this series, later copied in stucco in the "Alexander-Hall” at the St Petersburg Hermitage, 1838-1828.