The Fortress of Königstein from the North

By the spring of 1756 Augustus III, King of Poland and Elector of Saxony, had commissioned from Bellotto five views of Königstein, the fortress on its sandstone plateau above the Elbe, about 40 kilometres upstream of Dresden. At the end of that August Prussian troops marched into Saxony and the Seven Years' War began. The king never received his pictures. Königstein itself became a refuge for the royal art collection during the war, and Bellotto, paid in 1758, left Dresden for Vienna. This is the view from the north. Walls, gun platforms and a timber scaffold are picked out almost stone by stone, while below them cattle graze, a rider climbs the slope and a woman with a child walks along the track. The National Gallery bought the canvas in 2017 with help from many private donors.