Watercolor Drawing: Barricade In Pisa In 1849 By Auguste Raffet

A French draftsman, engraver, and painter, born in Paris, and nephew of General Nicolas Raffet, he initially worked as a porcelain painter for Cabannel, a supplier to the Sèvres National Porcelain Manufactory. Seeking to improve his financial situation, he took evening classes at the Académie Suisse and became friends with Nicolas-Toussaint Charlet, who taught him lithographic drawing. In 1829, Auguste applied to the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and was accepted into Gros's studio. He devoted himself primarily to lithographic drawing and watercolor. In 1837, he participated in the scientific expedition to Russia led by Prince Anatole Demidoff, alongside 22 other scientists, writers, and artists. Drawing his preferred themes from the military genre, Raffet became one of the leading illustrators of the Napoleonic legend and powerfully popularized the image of the "old soldier." He sketched his first popular drawings in the drinking club of the Joyeux or Frileux, which he frequented regularly with his teacher Charlet, the club's senior member. He also drew the Siege of Antwerp (1832), the conquest of Algeria, and the Siege of Rome by French troops in 1849. The work is unsigned but annotated in the lower right corner in pencil: 1849, and in ink: Pisa, April 18. We know that Raffet arrived in Rome at the end of the siege in July 1849.