Great Square with the Shops after Guerard de la Barthe.Bustling with activity the famous shopping square is shown before the fire of 1812. Paul I considered this the most beautiful of de la Barthe's paintings in the series.


In 1781 the ill-fated Paul I of Russia, then heir to the throne, began a tour of Western Europe with his wife Maria Louis, Duchess of Wurtemburg. It is likely that during this journey the artist Guerard de la Barthe came to their attention. Little is known of de la Barthe, pupil of the neo-classicist painter Joseph Marie Wien; he arrived in Moscow in 1787 and was active until 1810. His arrival before the French Revolution and at a rather late stage in his career at the age of 57 suggests he was there by invitation and indeed the following year he completed a series of four watercolours of the Imperial estate of Tsarskoyoe Selo.

Between 1794 and 1797, de la Barthe was commissioned by John Walser to paint twelve scenes of the city of Moscow. Walser, a Swiss merchant, commissioned the paintings and then published etchings of them in Moscow under the permission of Paul I, whom had clearly taken a personal interest in de la Barthe’s paintings praising plates 1 and 3 as ‘les plus belles de la collection’. Walser no doubt intended to market the views to Western Europe, however his company failed before he had the opportunity.

In 1813 following the triumphant defeat of Napoleon, Rudolph Ackermann published a complete set of aquatints of the de la Barthe paintings, showing the city before it was in engulfed by the great fire of 1812. As Napoleon marched upon Moscow, fires were allegedly set under the orders of the governor Count Fyodor Rostopochin. Three-quarters of the city’s private homes and businesses were destroyed but so too the supplies that could have supported the French Army through the winter, a factor which contributed to Napoleon’s decision to retreat; an arduous journey that ultimately defeated his army.

De la Barthe’s works are neither comprehensively catalogued within Russia nor well known without but it would seem that the majority of the original twelve paintings did not themselves survive. The etchings published by Walser seemed to have fared little better with only one complete collection recorded. Ackermann’s aquatints, truer to de la Barthe’s paintings than Walser’s heavy etchings, beautifully express the artist’s delicate hand in capturing a city full of motion and light, and are some of the last landscapes of Moscow before it was irrevocably altered.


In 1781 the ill-fated Paul I of Russia, then heir to the throne, began a tour of Western Europe with his wife Maria Louis, Duchess of Wurtemburg. It is likely that during this journey the artist Guerard de la Barthe came to their attention.
Little is known of de la Barthe, pupil of the neo-classicist painter Joseph Marie Wien; he arrived in Moscow in 1787 and was active until 1810. His arrival before the French Revolution and at a rather late stage in his career at the age of 57 suggests he was there by invitation and indeed the following year he completed a series of four watercolours of the Imperial estate of Tsarskoyoe Selo. Between 1794 and 1797, de la Barthe was commissioned by John Walser to paint twelve scenes of the city of Moscow. Walser, a Swiss merchant, commissioned the paintings and then published etchings of them in Moscow under the permission of Paul I, whom had clearly taken a personal interest in de la Barthe’s paintings praising plates 1 and 3 as ‘les plus belles de la collection’. Walser no doubt intended to market the views to Western Europe, however his company failed before he had the opportunity.

In 1813 following the defeat of Napoleon, Rudolph Ackermann published a complete set of aquatints of the de la Barthe paintings, showing the city before it was in engulfed by the great fire of 1812. As Napoleon marched upon Moscow, fires were allegedly set under the orders of the governor Count Fyodor Rostopochin. Three-quarters of the city’s private homes and businesses were destroyed but so too the supplies that could have supported the French Army through the winter, a factor which contributed to Napoleon’s decision to retreat; an arduous journey that ultimately defeated his army.

De la Barthe’s works are neither comprehensively catalogued within Russia nor well known without but it would seem that the majority of the original twelve paintings did not themselves survive. The etchings published by Walser seemed to have fared little better with only one complete collection recorded. Ackermann’s aquatints, truer to de la Barthe’s paintings than Walser’s heavy etchings, beautifully express the artist’s delicate hand in capturing a city full of motion and light, and are some of the last landscapes of Moscow before it was irrevocably altered.