When Peter the Great went abroad for the second time, he instructed several French painters to create pictures depicting the most significant Russian victories over the Swedish army. In 1717 in Paris, Martin made a commitment to create four large cartoons for tapestries depicting the battles of Lesnaya and Gangut, as well as two main phases of the Battle of Poltava. The artist depicted the same subjects on four paintings. Only two of the signed paintings survived to this day (Tsarskoye Selo State Museum-Preserve). During the reign of Elizabeth Petrovna the paintings were housed in the Picture Hall of the Tsarskoe Selo Palace, where they remain. The Hermitage painting used to be attributed to Pierre-Denis Martin the Younger. However, in 1959–1960 it was already being suggested that the painting is actually a copy of the French original. This point of view was supported with a publication containing information about the artists Bolms and Lutz creating copies of the paintings for Grand Duke Konstantin Pavlovich of Russia in 1829–1831. In 1832, a copy of the Battle of Lesnaya painting was placed in the chamber of Nicholas I in the Winter Palace. After the fire of 1837, both copies were housed in the Apollo Hall to the right and to the left of the bust of Peter the Great created by Carlo Bartolomeo Rastrelli. The panoramic picture of the battle is extremely accurate, because the painter used the battle plans and descriptions, which had been sent to him.