?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 12,000 - $ 18,000
(CANNONS AND MORTARS.) Collection of 11 large and exquisite watercolor drawings of fieldpieces, folio or double elephant folio sheets, 650x980 mm largest sheet size. Watercolor, ink, and pencil on watermarked laid paper. One of the sheets is stained, a few of the others have small edge nicks, overall they are in very good condition, suitable for framing. [German-speaking Europe, second-half 18th century]
Sub-groups within this collection focus on specific fieldpieces and show them from multiple angles. One group is dated 1764; a new generation of cannon was issued by Great Britain in that year, and this may be related to that change. Large-calibre cannons are well represented.
This school of drawing flourished in German-speaking Europe in the 18th and very early 19th centuries. The work was often done by accomplished cadets or officers, and, as with this group and the few other collections we have seen, multiple artists are usually represented.
For similar (albeit somewhat less accomplished) drawings, look to the Hessian artillery section in the Wilhelmshöher Kriegskarten collection. In all likelihood the artillery depicted here are either Hessian or Prussian, and similar pieces would have been deployed in the French and Indian War and the American Revolution.
