What first catches the eye is the sense of unfinished business—three imposing figures in full diplomatic regalia, yet surrounded by painterly sketches, half-formed details, and studies of epaulettes and medals. The central figure, unmistakably dominant, stands in crisp profile, his chest a constellation of orders and sashes, while another, in a red fez, fixes the viewer with a direct, almost appraising look. The background is left raw and open, drawing attention to the careful modeling of uniforms and insignia, as if the artist is inviting us into the process of distilling power and personality onto canvas.

The gestures and glances are not casual: the upright posture, the resting hand on a sword, the measured tilt of a head—each is a study in the choreography of 19th-century diplomacy. Works like this oil sketch, made circa 1878 by Anton von Werner, belong to a world where portraits of statesmen and generals were both record and performance, tools of memory and instruments of statecraft. The men shown—documented as the Russian envoy Pjotr Andrejewitsch Schuwalow, the German chancellor Otto Fürst von Bismarck, and General Mehmed Ali Pascha of the Ottoman delegation—stood at the heart of the Congress of Berlin, a summit that redrew the map of Europe. Such images were often commissioned by governments or collected by institutions eager to commemorate moments of negotiation and shifting alliances.

Today, this particular sketch survives in a collection catalogued by Dorotheum, a reminder that history sometimes leaves us not with the finished spectacle, but with the artist’s searching hand, and the layered realities of power, costume, and fleeting encounter. Look again at the brushwork and the unfinished corners—the story here is as much about what is becoming as what is already formed.