''The 28th Regiment at Quatre Bras'' is an oil painting on canvas from 1875, painted by

Elizabeth Thompson Elizabeth Southerden Thompson (3 November 1846 – 2 October 1933), later known as Lady Butler, was a British painter who specialised in painting scenes from British military campaigns and battles, including the Crimean War and the Napoleonic ...

. She became better known as Lady Butler after her marriage to William Butler in 1877. The painting is high and wide. It is in the National Gallery of Victoria,

Melbourne, Australia Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a metropol ...

.''The 28th Regiment at Quatre Bras''
, Victorian Web

Subject

Thompson based the painting on the account of the battle in a book written by Captain William Siborne, the ''History of the War in France and Belgium in 1815'', first published in 1844. The painting portrays the

28th (North Gloucestershire) Regiment of Foot The 28th (North Gloucestershire) Regiment of Foot was a line infantry regiment of the British Army, raised in 1694. Under the Childers Reforms it amalgamated with the 61st (South Gloucestershire) Regiment of Foot to form the Gloucestershire Re ...

, of the British Army, on 16 June 1815, at the

Battle of Quatre Bras The Battle of Quatre Bras was fought on 16 June 1815, as a preliminary engagement to the decisive Battle of Waterloo that occurred two days later. The battle took place near the strategic crossroads of Quatre Bras and was contested between ele ...

. The battle, part of the Waterloo Campaign of the

Hundred Days The Hundred Days (french: les Cent-Jours ), also known as the War of the Seventh Coalition, marked the period between Napoleon's return from eleven months of exile on the island of Elba to Paris on20 March 1815 and the second restoration ...

, was just two days prior to the Battle of Waterloo. The regiment held off attacks from French cavalry at Quatre Bras. Thompson shows the regiment formed in a square in a field of

rye Rye (''Secale cereale'') is a grass grown extensively as a grain, a cover crop and a forage crop. It is a member of the wheat tribe (Triticeae) and is closely related to both wheat (''Triticum'') and barley (genus ''Hordeum''). Rye grain is u ...

, withstanding attacks, at approximately 17:00, from

lancer A lancer was a type of cavalryman who fought with a lance. Lances were used for mounted warfare in Assyria as early as and subsequently by Persia, India, Egypt, China, Greece, and Rome. The weapon was widely used throughout Eurasia during the M ...

s and cuirassiers led by Marshal Ney.

Preparation for painting

Thompson went to great lengths to create models for her work. In July 1874, she arranged for 300 soldiers from the

Royal Engineers The Corps of Royal Engineers, usually called the Royal Engineers (RE), and commonly known as the ''Sappers'', is a corps of the British Army. It provides military engineering and other technical support to the British Armed Forces and is heade ...

to pose in a reconstruction of the square formation, and to fire their rifles, to recreate the smoky scene. Several of the soldiers also modelled in Thompson's studio. Thompson observed horses at Sanger's Circus and the Horse Guards riding school, as models for the French cavalry. She also arranged for a group of children to trample down a field of rye in

Henley-on-Thames Henley-on-Thames ( ) is a town and civil parish on the River Thames in Oxfordshire, England, northeast of Reading, west of Maidenhead, southeast of Oxford and west of London (by road), near the tripoint of Oxfordshire, Berkshire and Buc ...

, to recreate the setting.

Headwear error

She had copies of the historic uniforms made by a government manufacturer in Pimlico. However, the shako she depicts the regiment wearing is incorrect. Whilst nearly all Regiments of Foot in the British Army had adopted the false-fronted Belgic shako since 1812, so the replica uniforms were correct for a standard line regiment, the 28th Regiment continued to wear the older stovepipe shakos during the Hundred Days campaign. The older headwear can be seen clearly in William Barnes Wollen's painting: ''28th Gloucester Regiment at Waterloo''.

Title and collection

The heavy gold frame bears the inscription "Egypt" at the top, and "Quatre-Bras 1815" below. The work was exhibited at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition in 1875, the year after Elizabeth Thompson exhibited her acclaimed ''

The Roll Call ''Calling the Roll After An Engagement, Crimea'', better known as ''The Roll Call'', is an 1874 oil-on-canvas painting by Elizabeth Thompson, Lady Butler. It became one of the most celebrated British paintings of the 19th century, but later f ...

''. It was bought by the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia, in 1884.The 28th Regiment at Quatre Bras
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

References

External links

Google Cultural Institute
{{DEFAULTSORT:28th Regiment at Quatre Bras, The 1875 paintings Paintings in the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria Paintings by Elizabeth Thompson Waterloo campaign in paintings Flags in art Horses in art War paintings