We are proud to present the famous painting 'Quatre Bras' of the Dutch historical painter Jan Willem Pieneman in our next volume 'Quatre Bras, Perponcher's gamble'. Pieneman was commissioned shortly after 1815 to represent the Prince of Orange for his heroic conduct during the battle of Quatre Bras and finished it in 1817. The oil canvas toured through several towns of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands and gained much appreciation, before it reached its final destination Palace Soestdijk where it can still be seen today.
Here we can for now present a pen and ink drawing based on the original painting.
The painting is not merely an attempt to glorify the Prince of Orange and the new royal family ruling the fledgling state of The Netherlands, but moreover is an important historical document on which several officers are portrayed of who in some cases we have other and often later portraits available, but others like Lieutenant-Colonel Grunebosch of the 27th Jägers Battalion, or one of the prince's aides-de camp Nicolaas Cornelis Ampt or Colonel Louis Jean Henri Theordore du Caylar have not been represented anywhere else. Fortunately Sovereign House Books has been able to obtain this information which will be presented in a special sidebar in Volume Two by Mr. Ab Küchler, who for more than twenty years has been a keen collector of original Netherlands memoirs on the battle of Waterloo and portraits of the men involved.
The portraits of these men shown on Pieneman's painting form part of the larger collection of portraits, which will be presented in Volume Two. These will focus on officers of the 2nd Netherlands Division, some staff officers from the Anglo-Allied 1st Corps and last but not least a few cavalry officers from Major-General van Merlen's brigade who participated at Quatre Bras and were wounded and not present at the battle of Waterloo.