Suworows Alpenüberquerung 1799

Surikov finished this in 1899, exactly a hundred years after the event it shows, the old field marshal Alexander Suvorov leading a Russian army back over the Alps in the autumn of 1799, trapped and outnumbered, forcing his men down the passes in the snow. To get the feeling of that descent, Surikov travelled to Switzerland himself and slid down icy slopes near Interlaken. It shows in the picture, soldiers dropping almost vertically down a frozen face, bayonets first. What catches you is their faces. Several are grinning, even joking, on the edge of a deadly plunge, because Suvorov, mounted at the top, is joking with them. Nicholas II bought the huge canvas the year it was painted.