The Battle of Waterloo was fought on Sunday 18 June 1815, near Waterloo, marking the end of the Napoleonic Wars. A French army under the command of Napoleon was defeated by two armies of the Seventh Coalition. One of these was a British-led force with units from the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Hanover, Brunswick, and Nassau, under the command of Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington. The other comprised three corps of the Prussian army under Field Marshal Blücher; a fourth corps of this army fought at the Battle of Wavre on the same day. The battle was known contemporarily as the Battle of Mont Saint-Jean in France and La Belle Alliance in Prussia.
Waterloo is a 1970 English-language epic historical war film about the Battle of Waterloo. A co-production between Italy and the Soviet Union, it was directed by Sergei Bondarchuk and produced by Dino De Laurentiis. It stars Rod Steiger as Napoleon Bonaparte and Christopher Plummer as the Duke of Wellington with a cameo by Orson Welles as Louis XVIII of France. Other stars include Jack Hawkins as General Sir Thomas Picton, Virginia McKenna as the Duchess of Richmond and Dan O'Herlihy as Marshal Ney.
Sir David Wilkie was a Scottish painter, especially known for his genre scenes. He painted successfully in a wide variety of genres, including historical scenes, portraits, including formal royal ones, and scenes from his travels to Europe and the Middle East. His main base was in London, but he died and was buried at sea, off Gibraltar, returning from his first trip to the Middle East. He was sometimes known as the "people's painter".
Sir William Allan was a distinguished Scottish historical painter known for his scenes of Russian life. He became president of the Royal Scottish Academy and was made a Royal Academician.
John Frederick Lewis (1804–1876) was an English Orientalist painter. He specialized in Oriental and Mediterranean scenes in detailed watercolour or oils, very often repeating the same composition in a version in each medium. He lived for several years in a traditional mansion in Cairo, and after his return to England in 1851 he specialized in highly detailed works showing both realistic genre scenes of Middle Eastern life and more idealized scenes in upper-class Egyptian interiors with little apparent Western influence.
The Lion's Mound is a large conical artificial hill in the municipality of Braine-l'Alleud, Walloon Brabant, Belgium. King William I of the Netherlands ordered its construction in 1820, and it was completed in 1826. It commemorates the spot on the battlefield of Waterloo where the king's elder son, Prince William of Orange, is presumed to have been wounded on 18 June 1815, as well as the Battle of Quatre Bras, which had been fought two days earlier.
Lord Uxbridge's leg was shattered, probably by a piece of case shot, at the Battle of Waterloo and removed by a surgeon. The amputated right limb became a tourist attraction in the village of Waterloo, Belgium, where it had been removed and interred.
George Jones was a British painter, and Keeper of the Royal Academy, most famous for his paintings of military subjects.
William Siborne, Sibourne or Siborn was a British officer and military historian whose most notable work was a history of the Waterloo Campaign.
General Alexander Cavalié Mercer was a British Army officer of the Royal Horse Artillery. He is most notable as commander of G Troop Royal Horse Artillery at the Battle of Waterloo, and as author of Journal of the Waterloo Campaign.
Denis Dighton was an English painter, best known for his military portraits and battle scenes.
Hope is a Symbolist oil painting by the English painter George Frederic Watts, who completed the first two versions in 1886. Radically different from previous treatments of the subject, it shows a lone blindfolded female figure sitting on a globe, playing a lyre that has only a single string remaining. The background is almost blank, its only visible feature a single star. Watts intentionally used symbolism not traditionally associated with hope to make the painting's meaning ambiguous. While his use of colour in Hope was greatly admired, at the time of its exhibition many critics disliked the painting. Hope proved popular with the Aesthetic Movement, who considered beauty the primary purpose of art and were unconcerned by the ambiguity of its message. Reproductions in platinotype, and later cheap carbon prints, soon began to be sold.
The Chelsea Pensioners reading the Waterloo Dispatch, originally entitled Chelsea Pensioners Receiving the London Gazette Extraordinary of Thursday, June 22, 1815, Announcing the Battle of Waterloo, is an oil painting by David Wilkie, commissioned by Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington in August 1816.
The Meeting of Wellington and Blücher after the Battle of Waterloo is a monumental wall painting by Irish painter Daniel Maclise, completed in 1861. It depicts the moment towards the end of the Battle of Waterloo on 18 June 1815, when the commanders of the allied British and Prussian armies, the Duke of Wellington and Marshal Blücher, met near La Belle Alliance. Measuring 3.68 by 13.92 metres, it is displayed in the Royal Gallery at the Palace of Westminster.
The Prince of Orange at Quatre Bras is an 1818 battle painting by the Dutch artist Jan Willem Pieneman. It depicts a scene from the Battle of Quatre Bras fought on 16 June 1815, two days before the decisive Battle of Waterloo. The young William, Prince of Orange, heir to the Dutch throne and a Lieutenant General in the British Army, had command of a corps of Allied troops. The Waterloo campaign took place in Belgium which had recently granted to the new United Kingdom of the Netherlands by the Congress of Vienna. William of Orange was the senior Dutch figure present at the battle, serving under the overall command of the Duke of Wellington.
The Battle of Waterloo is a large history painting by the Dutch artist Jan Willem Pieneman completed in 1824. It portrays the Battle of Waterloo on 18 June 1815 which marked the final defeat of Napoleon's French Empire and the end of the Napoleonic Wars. It focuses on the Allied commanders led by the Duke of Wellington. Following the success of his 1818 work The Prince of Orange at Quatre Bras the artist chose to depict another scene from the Hundred Days campaign. He traveled to London in February 1821 where he received assistance from the Duke of Wellingon who let him establish a temporary studio in Apsley House and posed for his own portrait. He also arranged sittings with other senior figures present at Waterloo and in addition had his horse Copenhagen brought to London so that Pieneman could capture its likeness. After spending nearly nearly four months in London the artist returned to Amsterdam where he also painted the Prince of Orange in preparation for the work.
The Defence of Saragossa is an 1828 history painting by the British artist David Wilkie. It depicts a scene during the 1808 Siege of Zaragoza at the time of the Peninsular War. Wilkie, A London-based Scottish painter had recently travelled through Spain. This was one of a series of four works he produced featuring scenes of Spanish resistance to the French occupiers in the Peninsular War.
Sir David Baird Discovering the Body of Sultan Tipoo Sahib is an 1839 history painting by the Scottish artist David Wilkie. It presents a scene during the Siege of Seringapatam in 1799. General Baird, a senior British officer and accompanying troops encounter the body of the Tipu Sultan. The ruler of Mysore and an ally of France he was killed when Anglo-Indian forces stormed his capital Seringapatam.
The Parish Beadle is an 1823 genre painting by the Scottish artist David Wilkie. It depicts a comically overzealous parish beadle taking a troupe of travelling Savoyard entertainers into custody for vagrancy. They have evidently been performing at the fair seen in the distance which has some echoes of William Hogarth's Southwark Fair.
