Artist – Polenov
Vasily Polenov took part in the Russian-Turkish war of 1877-1878, as an official artist in the main apartment of Tsarevich Alexander Alexandrovich. In early November 1877, Polenov arrived in the Rushchuk district, where the main apartment was located. Polenov’s service can be read in the correspondence of the Grand Duke with his wife: “The other day I came to us Polenov and have already begun to draw. He already made the sketches of my house a bonus, the Bulgarian Church and several more small groups, and now he has begun our dining room, which can be very well and is very original. I will certainly send you some drawings that will be more completed “.
Six years after the end of the war, Alexander III reminded Polenov that his battal paintings about the past military campaign were followed. On a small canvas “The room of the commander of the Rushchuki detachment of Grand Duke Alexander Aleksandrovich in Brestovts” The future emperor appears more like a guest in a peaceful Balkan house with bright carpets and low furniture. Polenov performed sixteen canvases on the theme of the Russo-Turkish war. Fifteen of these works were placed in the living rooms of the imperial couple and in the living room on the spare half of the palace, where dinners were arranged every year in memory of the sword (settlement in Bulgaria), where military operations were held. “The room of the commander of the Rushchuk detachment of Grand Duke Alexander Alexandrovich in Brestovts”, among the other this series, later entered the collection of the Russian Museum.