The lithograph reproduces a famous Samuel Waller’s painting “The Empty Saddle” (dated 1879). In 1893, it was exhibited at the World’s (‘Columbian’) exhibition in Chicago. The exhibition was also attended by the Women’s Committee of Kazan: Olga Boratynskaya, the daughter-in-law of the poet Yevgeny Boratynskiy, sent to Chicago the laces by artisans from Shushary village, Kazan province, who received the bronze medal of the exhibition.

The creator of the painting, Samuel Waller (who lived from 1850 to 1903), was a renowned English painter and author of genre and historical paintings. His paintings are in the collections of the world’s largest art museums, but in Russia he was little known.

This work was done in lithography, which made it possible to make a copy of a drawing from a zinc or aluminium plate. The image itself was applied with a special lithographic pencil or ink.

As remembered by Ivan Alekseev, the great-grandson of Yevgeny Boratynskiy, in the circle of the family the painting was ironically called ‘Malbrook’. This name was associated with the first verses of the popular French song ‘Marlbrook has left for the war’. It was composed by French soldiers in 1709 on the eve of the famous Battle of Malplaquet. It begins with the words: ‘Marlbrook went on a hike, Mironton, Mirenton, Mironten’. The song was about Marlbrook’s wife waiting for her husband to return from war.

In Russia, the song about Malbrook became particularly popular after the Patriotic War of 1812. In the soldiers' way, the lyrics were modified and enriched with comical and often obscene details. The name of the warlord Marlbrook was preserved, but as a rule it was Napoleon who was referred to by it. In the modern Russian language the ironic idiom “Marlbrook is going on a hike” is applied to the person who has done something absurd or whose actions have ended in embarrassment for all participants of the story.