Alexander von Kotzebue was educated in the Cadet Corps in St Petersburg to be a gardeleutnant. Four years later, in 1838, he changed to an artistic career and began his artistic training at the St. Petersburg Academy under Alexander Sauerweid., where he spent six years. He continued his studies in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy and Germany in 1848, before he finally settled down in Munich. There he became Imperial professor of Russian and an honorary member of the Academy of Fine Arts Munich.

von Kotzebue became a romantic painter of historical scenes and battle scenes. He painted several large-scale works for the Russian tsar of Russian battles in the Seven Years' War and the campaigns of Alexander Suvorov. The most important of these are considered to be the Storming of Schlüsselburg, Battle of Poltava, Storming of Narva, Crossing of the Devil's Bridge and Founding of St Petersburg.

Provenance: Gift to the Danish seller from the German architect and painter, Otto von Kotzebue, great-grandson of Alexander von Kotzebue. On this occasion, Otto von Kotzebue showed several rolled-up artworks to the Danish seller and told that the painting was painted by his great-grandfather.