Lot 1363 | Franz Roubaud | Circassian Riders at the Ford

ROUBAUD, FRANZ
1856 Odessa - 1928 Munich

Title: Circassian Riders at the Ford.
Date: ca. 1900.
Technique: Oil on canvas.
Mounting: Laid on fibreboard.
Measurement: 85 x 134cm.
Notation: Signed lower left: F. Roubaud.
Frame: Framed.

Literature:
E. Lingenauber / O. Sugrobova-Roth: Franz Roubaud catalogue raisonné, Düsseldorf 2012, no. A 22 - P i digital addendum.

Provenance:
Private ownership, Germany.

The painter Franz Roubaud created this painting in an interesting composition.
The horizontal format is divided into three horizontal stripes. The upper field shows the background: the sky and the hilly country with a weir tower, running out into the horizon line on the right. Below this is the middle ground: the river is a stronger blue than the sky, some sand and scree banks pick up the colour of the low-hanging clouds. The foreground in the lowest strip of the picture shows green vegetation, broken up by wheel tracks that lead as a dynamic line from the lower right edge of the picture into the depths to the ford and connect foreground and middle ground with their sand colour.

This barren landscape without trees or bushes is crossed by a train of Circassian horsemen, three covered wagons and a man on foot leading two pack-horses. The majority of the travellers are still in the river and moving towards the bank on this side. Three riders have already arrived here, leading the procession and riding towards the viewer.
The three upright figures on horseback compositionally interlock the three grounds of the picture: The horses walk on the foreground, the bodies of the riders stand in front of the middle ground and the long spears, which the riders each hold in their right hand, project high into the uppermost strip of the background. The intense colours of the Circassians' garments in shades of red, blue and yellow contrast strongly with the restrained colours of the landscape. People, horses and implements are also given a strong presence by the bright colours of the centre and background and their hazy atmosphere.

Franz Roubaud was THE painter of the second half of the 19th century for motifs from the Caucasus and the remote areas of the Tsarist empire. The son of French migrants, he had been born in Odessa, where he also received his first training as an artist. A trip to Tbilisi probably brought the young Roubaud into contact with the art of Theodor Horschelt (1829 - 1871), who strongly influenced him. After three years of further training at the Art Academy in Munich with Carl Theodor von Piloty, Wilhelm Diez and the "soldier painter" Josef von Brandt, he temporarily returned home and devoted himself intensively to the subject area in which his role model Horschelt had already specialised: exotic and oriental-looking equestrian peoples and mounted Russian military men.

Roubaud soon had clients, collectors and patrons, including from the Tsar's family. He also attracted a great deal of attention for the monumental panorama battle paintings he produced together with other artists ("The Battle of Borodino", "The Defence of Sevastopol"). From 1903 to 1912 Roubaud held a professorship at the Art Academy in St Petersburg, but always commuted between Russia and Munich. There he finally settled and, with the outbreak of World War I, also took German citizenship.

We are grateful to Olga Sugrobova-Roth and Eckart Lingenbauber, Düsseldorf, who have confirmed the authenticity of the present painting using the original.