The Capture of Lieutenant General Johann Hermann von Fersen During the Battle of Bergen (19 September 1799)

The Capture of Lieutenant General Johann Hermann von Fersen During the Battle of Bergen (19 September 1799)

Dirk Langendijk

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

In August 1799, Anglo-Russian forces invaded the Netherlands, which had, in 1795, proclaimed itself the Batavian Republic in alliance with Revolutionary France. A month later the Dutch and French claimed an important victory at the Battle of Bergen in North Holland. This sheet depicts a decisive moment in that battle. Left of center, Johann Hermann von Fersen, an infantry general in the Imperial Russian Army, is seized from his horse. Other fallen soldiers and horses appear in the foreground. Smoke and gunpowder fill the sky with a thick haze. Here, as with his drawing of the British troops landing at Callantsoog (British National Maritime Museum, Greenwich), Langendijk claimed firsthand observation with the inscription “ad viv delint” (drawn from life). (JSS, 8/23/2018)

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Capture of Lieutenant General Johann Hermann von Fersen During the Battle of Bergen (19 September 1799)The Capture of Lieutenant General Johann Hermann von Fersen During the Battle of Bergen (19 September 1799)The Capture of Lieutenant General Johann Hermann von Fersen During the Battle of Bergen (19 September 1799)The Capture of Lieutenant General Johann Hermann von Fersen During the Battle of Bergen (19 September 1799)The Capture of Lieutenant General Johann Hermann von Fersen During the Battle of Bergen (19 September 1799)

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.