Faber du Faur, Christian Wilhelm von

Oblong folio album (377 x 595mm.), 96 lithographed plates (of 100), ALL BUT 2 COLOURED BY HAND, the plates of varying sizes mounted in an album, nineteenth-century morocco, titled in gilt on upper cover "Russischer Feldzug 1812", without text (printed separately), lacking title and 4 plates (no.94-96 and 99), a number of plates browned or toned, some mounts with marginal tears, binding slightly worn, upper hinge broken; sold as a collection of plates, not subject to return

the condition of this lot is as described in the catalogue description
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A RARE DEPICTION OF THE FRENCH INVASION OF RUSSIA.

Christian Wilhelm von Faber du Faur (1780-1857) was a lieutenant in the Second Foot Artillery Battery of the Wurttemberg Army, an element in the massed host assembled by Napoleon for the invasion of Russia. Of the 15,000 Wurttembergers who set out, only a hundred returned to Poland in December 1812. Faber du Faur was one of these. He was a skilled amateur artist and, whilst on the march, made a detailed record of the campaign through sketches in pencil, ink and watercolour. These illustrations provide a graphic visual account of Napoleon's invasion, from the crossing of the River Niemen in June 1812 to the calamitous retreat in December, and include scenes of life in camp, of the Russian landscape and populace, of the problems posed by the weather, and of battle scenes.