Charles Van Zeller (1811 - 1837)

Charles Van Zeller

Charles Van Zeller was a British-Portuguese artist and draftsman.

He served in the British Foreign Legion during the war in Portugal and later in Spain. Here is how Zeller himself described his pictorial work: "Being for a considerable time seconded to the Spanish army headquarters, I amused myself in my leisure hours by sketching a variety of costumes and military scenes, which I often witnessed .... They may serve as illustrations to the numerous works written about the Spanish war, and will help to form an idea of what is actually happening in Spain."

The result of this work was the book "Spanish Civil War", published in 1837. It included characteristic sketches of the various troops, native and foreign, that made up the army of Don Carlos and Queen Isabella, as well as various war scenes and costumes of the Spanish peasantry by Major Charles van Zeller at the headquarters of the Queen's army.