Jean-victor Adam Known As Victor Adam - The Zouaves

Jean-Victor dit Victor ADAM Paris, 1801 – Viroflay, 1866 Watercolor 14 x 18.5 cm (30.5 x 34.5 cm with the frame) Signed lower left "V. Adam"
Visible at the galery
Very beautiful watercolor by Jean-Victor Adam who was a draftsman and lithographer in the military field. Soldiers of an infantry regiment, riflemen are represented here, against a landscape background with a palm tree and on the left a French flag bearer. The costumes of the soldiers in the foreground are well detailed, we recognize zouaves, these Algerian mercenaries incorporated into the French army during the conquest of Algeria in 1830. And the historicity of this work is reinforced by the representation also in the background of many characters who form an army in the center, and on the right other characters with a mosque and a building with a French flag. This watercolour can be dated quite early because a portrait of a Zouave by Eugène Delacroix in the 1830s shows an identical costume (Moravska Gallery, Brno in the Czech Republic).