SCHREYER, Christian Adolf
German painter. He first studied at the Städel Institute in his native Frankfurt, and then in Stuttgart and Munich. During his artistic training, he studied equine anatomy, and his work is notable for the confidence with which he depicts horses.
Schreyer accompanied Maximilian Karl, 6th Prince of Thurn and Taxis through Hungary, Wallachia, Russia and Turkey. Then, in 1854, he followed the Austrian army across the Wallachian frontier. As an artist-reporter, he was assigned to cover the Crimean War. In 1856 he went to Egypt and Syria, and in 1861 to Algiers. In 1862 he settled in Paris but he returned to Germany in 1870 and settled in Kronberg, near Frankfurt, where he died.
Schreyer was especially esteemed as a painter of horses, peasant life in Wallachia and Moldavia and of battles. His work is particularly remarkable for its excellent equine draughtsmanship and for the artist’s power of observation and forceful statement. Schreyer was highly appreciated by French and American collectors.
