| The Village of Waterloo | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Artist | George Jones |
| Year | 1821 |
| Type | Oil on panel, history painting |
| Dimensions | 49.5 cm× 62.1 cm(19.5 in× 24.4 in) |
| Location | National Army Museum, London |
The Village of Waterloo is an oil on panel history painting by the English artist George Jones, from 1821. [1] [2] It has the longer subtitle With Travellers Purchasing the Relics That Were Found in the Field of Battle, 1815.
It shows a scene in the village of Waterloo In the immediate aftermath of the Battle of Waterloo during the Hundred Days campaign. Villagers are selling souvenirs of the campaign to a Highland soldier and tourists who have arrived by coach from Brussels. Meanwhile, a Prussian offers items to a mounted hussar. All have presumably been looted from corpses on the battlefield. Meanwhile, a cart filled with redcoated British bodies can be seen on the left while a group of lancers on horseback are clustered around an inn on the right. [3]
Jones, a captain in the militia, visited the scene soon after the battle and made sketches. The battlefield became a major tourist destination over subsequent decades. [4] It was part of cluster of paintings depicting the Waterloo Campaign produced around this time including David Wilkie's Chelsea Pensioners reading the Waterloo Dispatch . [5] The work was displayed at the Royal Academy's Summer Exhibition at Somerset House. Today it is in the collection of the National Army Museum in London. [3]