Lot 6930

Description

Oil on a reddish brown, primed canvas, unsigned. Three-quarter length portrait, the subject standing and wearing the tunic of the Schulenburg Dragoons with officer's cuirass (cipher "FWR"), officer's sash and dagger. A helmet at the bottom right as a reference to nobility, a landscape in the background, inscribed „O: v: Gessler. 1721, d:12 Aug:” in white at the top. In a later moulded frame. The painted surface in fine condition with typical craqelure, signs of wear and age. Size of the painting 141 x 93.5 cm, size of the frame 152 x 105 cm. The painting was commissioned on the promotion of Leopold von Geßler, later Prussian Generalfeldmarschall and cavalry general under Frederick the Great, to the rank of Oberst in the Schulenburg Regiment on 12 August 1721. The cavalry unit was established as the Schulenburg Dragoon Regiment on 2 April 1717 in Halberstadt on the orders of Friedrich Wilhelm I. Achaz von der Schulenburg was the regiment's first commander, while the regiment was later known as the "Bayreuth Dragoons" and "Queen Dragoons". In 1715, the Dragoons were also equipped with cuirasses, and like the cavalry regiments, they were also issued leather tunics. Geßler's charge with the Dragoons of the Bayreuth Regiment in the Battle of Hohenfriedberg on 4 June 1745, during which he captured 67 standards, was long regarded as the most daring and successful attack in the history of the Prussian cavalry. Geßler was the namesake of the later Imperial Cuirassier Regiment „Graf Gessler (Rhenish) No. 8. The painting offered for auction in this lot is a rarity of the first order. Pick-up only or shipment by art courier.

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