Marshal Blucher at the Battle of Ligny, 16 June 1815
Abraham Cooper (London 1787 - Greenwich 1868)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
1815 - 1816 (exh at BI)
Materials
Oil on canvas
Measurements
673 x 1676 mm (26 1/2 x 44 in)
Place of origin
England
Order this imageCollection
Petworth House and Park, West Sussex
NT 485150
Summary
Oil painting on canvas, Marshal Blucher at the Battle of Ligny, 16 June 1815 by Abraham Cooper (London 1787 – Greenwich 1868), c. 1815-16, exhibited British Institution, London, 1816, no 118. The catalogue entry for the picture reads: 'The dangerous situation and narrow escape of Prince Blucher when his horse was killed by a musket shot, and the French cuirassiers were, on repassing him, driven back by the Prussian cavalry; an Adjutant General alone remained with him, and had just alighted, resolved to share his fate.' The scene is set during the Battle of Ligny, fought between Napoleon I's Armée du Nord and the Prussian army led by Field Marshal Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher (1742-1819). Blücher, then 72, is the figure on the ground at centre, trapped beneath his dead horse, narrowly avoiding being trampled to death. According to accounts Blücher's adjutant, August Ludwig von Nostitz (1777-1866), came to his rescue by concealing Blücher's identity from the French with a great coat (seen around the Field Marshal's proper left shoulder). In the picture Nostitz attempts to haul the dead animal off of Blücher.
Provenance
On loan from the Egremont Private Collection
Credit line
Petworth House, The Egremont Collection
Makers and roles
Abraham Cooper (London 1787 - Greenwich 1868), artist
References
Collins Baker 1920 C.H.Collins Baker, Catalogue of the Petworth Collection of Pictures, in the possession of Lord Leconfield, privately printed by the Medici Society, London, 1920, p. 18 no. 664