The Battlefield at Marathon
by ROTTMANN, Carl, Oil on canvas, 91 x 91 cm
This Romantic canvas of the battlefield at Marathon is one of a series of oil sketches Rottmann prepared as a Munich court painter for a projected fresco cycle of thirty-eight “Greek Landscapes” intended to supplement those of Italy. Marathon was a site with a powerful political agenda. It was the battleground that represented the triumph of the West over the East, of the Greeks over the Persians.