Columbus Landing

Columbus Landing by the American painter John Vanderlyn (1775-1852). This painting was commissioned by the Congress in June 1836 for the Capitol Rotunda. Columbus was claimed as a forefather of the modern USA.

Loving Wife

A nice illustration to Shakespeares Antonius and Cleopatra by the American artist Edwin Austin Abbey (1852-1911). It was published in Harper's Monthly Magazine in September 1909.

Valley Forge

Washington and Lafayette at Valley Forge (1907) by the American painter John Ward Dunsmore (1856-1945). The hard winter in Valley Forge one of the great myths of the American War of Independence.

Esther before the King

Esther Denouncing Haman by the British painter Ernest Normand (1859-1923). This is an old popular subject in religious art. But Normand painted it like a history or orientalistic painting with the great theatrical gestures which were popular.

Mythical Past

Dolmen in Snow by the German Romantic painter Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840). Though it's no history painting history, better the past, is present and the subject.

Historic Saint

Saint Nicholas of Myra saves three innocents from death (1890) by the Russian realistic painter Ilya Repin (1844-1930). Despite it's kind of a religious painting Repic depicts it like a real history painting with the crresponding costumes and arms.

A Bloody Civil War

Henri de La Rochejacquelein at the Battle of Cholet in 1793 by the French painter Paul-Emile Boutigny (1853-1929). It's a scene from the War in the Vendée a popular Catholic and Royal uprising during the French Revolution.

Crusader Gallery

Richard I the Lionheart (1841) by the French Neoclassical painter Merry-Joseph Blondel (1781-1853). Blondel was a student of Jean-Baptiste Regnault and did a whole series of famous crusaders such as Richard the Lionheart, Raymond IV de Toulouse, Jean de Joinville and others for the Crusader Gallery in the National Museum in Versailles.

Cannon Fodder

Sir John Falstaff Reviews His Ragged Regiment (1859) by the English artist Sir John Gilbert (1817–1897). Falstaff in front of his infamous "shadows", non-existent or disabled soldiers for whom the commanding officer receives pay. Recruiting is here a business with the only purpose to make money. In a very modern way Falstaff refers to his men: "Now, now: they’re good enough to die. Cannon fodder, cannon fodder—they’ll fill a mass grave as well as better men would."

Heroic Hokum

The Capture of Malta in 1530 by Philippe Villiers de L'Isle-Adam, Grand Master of the Order of Knights Hospitaller, (1839) by the French painter René Théodore Berthon (1776–1859). Despite of the name of the painting Malta wasn't captured but given to Knights Hospitaller in by 1530 Emperor Charles V after they lost Rhodes. So it's evidently a kind of heroic hokum.

On the Way to Execution

The State Barge of Cardinal Richelieu on the Rhone (1829) by the French history painter Hippolyte Delaroche (1797-1856). The painting shows Richelieu his barge, preceding the boat carrying Cinq-Mars and De Thou carried to their execution. It's the heyday of Richelieu's power he defeated two of his most powerful opponents, but he will die in the same year (1642) and is already marked by death.

Pre CinemaScope Ben-Hur

The Chariot Race (1873) by the Hungarian painter Alexander originally Sándor von Wagner (1838- 919). Wagner was a student of the famous Karl von Piloty and became later himself a professor in history painting at the Munich Academy.

His most famous work is Chariot Race, which he painted for the Vienna Exposition (1873). The painting depicts the close of a chariot race in the Circus Maximus in Ancient Rome, presided over by Emperor Domitian. Chariot Race was completed in 1882 just two years after the publication of Ben-Hur.