Fragment of the military gallery of the Winter Palace

The Russian people showed unparalleled courage, heroism and staunchness in the struggle against the hordes of Napoleon, who before their invasion of our Fatherland had enslaved almost all the peoples of Europe. Contemporaries and descendants recalled with admiration the exploits of Russian soldiers.
Among the memorial structures erected in memory of 1812, the Military Gallery of the Winter Palace, which is currently on the display of the State Hermitage, is a kind of monument. There are three hundred and thirty-two portraits of the commanders of the Russian army who participated in the campaigns of 1812-1814, which began with the invasion of the French troops into Russia and ended less than two years later with the victorious entry of the Russian army into Paris.
The portraits were painted in 1819-1828 by the English portrait painter George Doe and his Russian assistants Alexander Vasilyevich Polyakov and Vasily (Wilhelm August) Aleksandrovich Golike.