A Remarkable and Interesting Collection of 45 Original Watercolour Drawings (1700 to 1800 Europe)

Watercolour on paper

Signed ‘pinxit. C J Smith’ Late 18th Century, variously dated 1793 – 1796

18.00cm wide 21.50cm high (7.09 inches wide8.46 inches high)

Provenance: The artist of these watercolours, C J Smith, was commissioned by Colonel Edward Vaughan-Salisbury to record the regimental attire of the various contingents of the ‘First Coalition’. Edward Vaughan-Salisbury was the third son of Sir Robert Howell Vaughan, 1st Baronet, of Nannau and upon inheriting Rug near Corwen he adopted the name Vaughan-Salisbury. These watercolours together with a further 23 from the same series originally hung at the family seat of Nannau, Merionnerthshire.
Thence by descent.

Depicted in these 45 watercolours are some of the uniforms worn by the many diverse regiments serving in the Netherlands expedition of 1793 – 1796 who comprised the ‘First Coalition’. This ‘First Coalition’ in Flanders was made up of English, Dutch Austrian and Prussian troops together with loyal French émigrés in the service of the British. The English contingent was under the command of Frederick Augustus, Duke of York.
The French revolutionary wars consisted of a series of campaigns between France and its neighbouring European states hostile to the revolution and to French hegemony. France began by declaring war on Emporer Francis II of Prussia and Sardinia, which precipitated the war of the ‘First Coalition’ (1792 – 1797). French forces attacked the Rhine, the Netherlands and Savoy after checking an initial Austro-Prussian advance at Valmy in 1792. France then later extended hostilities to Britain, Holland and Spain in 1793. After successfully invading the Netherlands in 1794 the French broke the coalition of 1798, isolating Britain. A second coalition expelled the French forces from Italy and the Rhine lands before suffering defeat by Napoleon I.
The uniforms represented include those of the Dutch Timmerman Hussars, Hanoverian horse guards, Austrian Barco hussars, Sax Cobourg dragoons, Esterhaze hussars, Royal Horse guards or Oxford blues, Hesse Darmstadt light infantry, Hesse Cassel light dragoons, Austrian Hungarian grenadiers, Austrian Michalowitz Bosnian Free corps, Austrian O’Donnel Free corps and the Prussian Chevaux Legers, and many others.

All framed - please contact for details

A Remarkable and Interesting Collection of 45 Original Watercolour Drawings of the
Uniforms of the many diverse Regiments which served in the ‘first coalition’ during the French Revolutionary wars
Signed ‘pinxit. C J Smith’
Watercolour, ink and pencil on paper
Late 18th Century, variously dated 1793 – 1796

Size: 21.5cm high, 18cm wide – 8½ ins high, 7 ins wide (each approx.)