Pforr's Russian Imperial horses

 Salvete omnes,

J.G. Pforr also painted, in ink, two horses of the Russian  Empire. 

the 1700s brought large scale horse breeding by various Russian, Coassack and tribal people of the Don and Volga steppe areas. The studs were organized and produced horses for the army and the state, especially under the long rule of  empress Yekaterina II (Catherine II ), whose armies conquered most of the Pontic and Volga steppes and  in Siberia etc. The nobility rode German, Dutch, Spanish, Polish, later English horses, as evidenced in these two portraits above.

Travelers from the West observed that Russian horses were accustomed to grazing all summer months, without the need for grain, when on campaign in the Pontic Steppe (and Russian and Ottoman empires clashed numerous times during the 1700s, while there were rebellions and uprising of the peasants and nomads of these steppes).

perhaps a Russian Cossack or a Kalmuck watering two horses, one bay and one palomino

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Valete