[1] In the 1867, Russian artist Vasily Vereshchagin (who had recently finished studying painting in Paris) was informed that the Governor of Russian Turkestan, Konstantin von Kaufmann, required cartographers and painters for military service in Imperial Russia's Central Asian territories.
[2] Enticed by the freedom such a position would provide,[2] Vereshchagin enlisted and was deployed to Samarkand in Turkestan, where a war had recently broken out between Russia and the Emirate of Bukhara.
Many of these paintings, though classified as orientalist,[2][1] were realistic and relatively uncensored, a fact that was in stark contrast to the works of Vereshchagin's Russian contemporaries.
[2] As Vereshchagin himself noted, "My main purpose [was]…to describe the barbarism with which until now the entire way of life and order of Central Asia has been saturated.
[2] Upon the completion of his works, Vereshchagin chose to present his collection of paintings at the Crystal Palace in London, as Russia was at the time considered an artistic backwater.