Ever-Present Peril

The Sword of Damocles (1812) by the neoclassical British painter Richard Westall (1765-1836).

Romantic Knight

The Princess (1911) by Howard Chandler Christy (1873-1952). Christy was an American artist and illustrator famous for the "Christy Girl", he published published in Scribner's and Harper's magazines and in Collier's Weekly.

Kind of Harem Painting

Brenn and His Share of the Spoils (1893) by the French painter Paul Jamin (1853-1903). Jamin depicts here the Gallic chieftain who sacked Rome probably in 387 BC in the popular manner of an Orientalistic harem painting. So it's in the end more the modern French going to a luxury brothel.

Heroic Waterloo

Waterlo, 18. Juni 1815 (1898) by the British painter William Holmes Sullivan (1870-1898). Another of these stupid heroic battle paintings. Here the English cavalry gas conquered a French flag.

Defeated Enemies

They Fell into Captivity (1885) by the Russian painter Bogdan Pavlovich Willewalde (1819-1903). Some French prisoners of Napoleon's terrific Grande Armée are conducted by a single Cossack. The painter contrasts the superb French uniforms with the simple outfit of the Cossack.