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Military-Prints.com

A collection of classic and antique military art prints from some of the best known military artists. This collection of prints covers all eras of military history, with emphasis on the Victorian era artwork of artists like Lady Butler, Ernest Crofts and Edouard Detaille. Much of the artwork available here is exclusive to Cranston Fine Arts.

NAVIGATION


Lady Elizabeth Butler - Ernest Crofts - Alphonse de Neuville - Horace Vernet - J B Edouard Detaille - Jean Louis Ernest Meissonnier - Richard Caton Woodville - James P Beadle - William Barnes Wollen - Thomas Jones Barker - Jacques Louis David - Robert Gibb - Robert Hillingford - John Charlton - Richard Simkin - Richard Knotel - Carl Rochling - Sir John Gilbert - Carl Vernet - Modern Artists - David Rowlands - Terence Cuneo - Antique Prints - Gifts and Books



FEATURED ARTIST - LADY ELIZABETH BUTLER

  Elizabeth Thompson, later Lady Butler, was perhaps the leading painter of this genre of the late nineteenth century. Her famous quartet of paintings exhibited between 1874 and 1877 (Calling the Roll after and Engagement in the Crimea - Her Majesty the Queen; Quatre Bras - National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; Balaclava - City of Manchester Art Gallery; and The Return from Inkerman - Ferens Art Gallery, Kingston upon Hull) established her reputation but her subsequent works never quite achieved the fame of these earlier pictures, in spite of such dramatic scenes as Scotland for Ever! (Leeds City Art Gallery) and The Defence of Rorkes Drift (Her Majesty the Queen) She continued to exhibit at the Royal Academy until 1920 but with few exceptions, all her pictures had military themes particularly soldiers in battle. While she never witnessed actual warfare, although she was in Egypt for some years in the 1880s with her husband, Lieut. Gen. Sir William Butler, many of her pictures were drawn accurately using models in some cases, or observing soldiers on maneuvers or practicing charges at Aldershot. For instance, when Queen Victoria commissioned the artist to depict the defense of Rorkes Drift, Elizabeth Butler went down to Gosport where the 24th Regiment was billeted upon its return from Natal, and made sketches from life. The soldiers even re-enacted the battle in their original uniforms worn throughout the campaign.

Lady Butler

Lady Butler Page




FEATURED ARTIST - RICHARD CATON WOODVILLE

  WOODVILLE, Richard Caton Born London 1856; died there 1927. Woodville was the most prolific battle artist of the nineteenth and early twentieth century in Britain, producing countless oil paintings and drawings, many for the Illustrated London News. As was the case with several history painters of the Victorian period, he studied at Dusseldorf sometime with Wilhelm Camphausen, the great German military painter, and later in Paris. He experienced was first-hand in Albania and Montenegro towards the end of the Russo-Turkish War in 1877, and later in Egypt during the war of 1882. During the latter conflict, he made numerous sketches and obtained photographs of the trenches at Tel-e-Kebir for his friend, the French military artist, Alphonse de Neuville (q.v.) who had been commissioned to paint a scene of the battle. The fruits of both their labours were shown at the Fine Art Society in 1883, Woodville, exhibiting The Moonlight Charge at Kassassin. In 1884, Woodville exhibited by Royal Command, another picture relating to the Egyptian War. The Guards at Tel-e-Kebir (Royal Collection). His first Royal Academy picture exhibited in 1879, was entitled Before Leuthen, Dec. 3rd, 1757. Thereafter, he was a frequent exhibitor at Burlington House, showing no less than 21 battle pictures, many dealing with contemporary events such as the Second Afghan War, Candahar (Private collection) and Maiwand; saving the Guns (Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool), the Zulu War - Prince Louis Napoleon in Zululand, and the Boer War - Lindley; Whitsunday 1900 (Oxfordshire Light Infantry Association), and Dawn of Majuba (Canadian Military Institute). He painted many historical recreations both in oil and water-colour including a series on famous British battles for the Illustrated London News. He depicted The Charge of the Light Brigade (Royal Collection, Madrid) and The Charge of the 21st Lancers at Omdurman (Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool), Blenheim, Badajos and several Waterloo pictures. During the Great War, he turned his talents to depicting the current events, three of which were exhibited at the Royal Academy. The 2nd Batt. Manchester Regiment taking six guns at dawn near St. Quentin (The Rings Regiment), Entry of the 5th Lancers into Mons (16th/5th Royal Lancers), and Halloween, 1914: Stand of the London Scottish on Messines Ridge (London Scottish Museum Trust) exhibited in the year of his death. During his life, he was the most popular artist of the genre and he was the subject of several articles in magazines and journals. He himself wrote some memoirs in 1914 entitled Random Recollections. He was deeply interested in the army and joined the Royal Berkshire Yeomanry Cavalry in 1879, staying with them until 1914 when he joined the National Reserve as a Captain.

Richard Caton Woodville Page





FEATURED ARTIST - ERNEST CROFTS

  Crofts was one of the leading military-historical painters of the late Victorian and Edwardian periods, exhibiting well over 40 paintings at the Royal Academy and numerous scenes at other exhibitions depicting soldiers in battle or on campaign. And, unlike many of his contemporaries, he had had the luxury of actually witnessing soldiers in battle during the Franco-Prussian War.  In fact it was his Royal Academy picture of 1877 - Oliver Cromwell at Marston Moor - that brought the artist to the attention of many art critics. Similarly it was another Civil War scene, his 1898 painting To the rescue: an episode of the Civil War, which he painted on election to the Academy itself, the only late nineteenth century military artist to achieve this honour. Most of the major battles of the war such as Edgehill, Marston Moor and Naseby were painted by the artist as well as siege related scenes, i.e. Oliver Cromwell at the Storming of Basing House, painted in 1900, The Surrender of Donnington Castle, painted three years later, and The surrender of the city of York to the Roundheads, exhibited only three years before the artist's death. Crofts painted a trilogy of canvases surrounding the execution of Charles 1 as well as scenes representing the campaigning at Worcester such as Charles 11 at Whiteladies (1898) and The Boscobel Oak (1889). Crofts died on March 19, 1911 at Burlington House where he had lived as Keeper of the Royal Academy. Three years later and almost a century after Waterloo, Europe went to war again on a scale unimagined by the artist. The Great War inspired a vastly different type of art focusing on the horrors rather than the glory of war. While Crofts' pictures had been popular in the 1870's and 1880's, the public lost its appetite for war pictures in the early years of the 20th century and during the hideous war in South Africa. While Crofts continued to paint scenes of war within the confines of the Royal Academy exhibitions, the public lost interest in his work and today, with the exception of a handful of canvases in public galleries, his paintings are more or less forgotten but they deserve greater attention if only for their wealth of detail and as windows on late Victorian attitudes to war and history. (c) Peter Harrington 1991.

Ernest Crofts

Ernest Crofts Page




FEATURED ARTIST - EDOUARD DETAILLE

  Born in Paris on 5th October, 1847, the young Detaille was surrounded by military figures from his grandfather who had worked as a sutler responsible for organizing Napoleons transports, to a great aunt who had married Admiral Villeneuve. Nonetheless, his only ambition was to be an artist and he let it be known that he wished to study with Cabanel but through various circumstances ended up in the great Meissoniers studio. It was in 1867 that the young artist first exhibited a picture, showing a view of Meissoniers studio but in the following year he showed his first military piece. While it was based solely on imagination, The Drummers Halt represented a scene from the French Revolution. This was to be the beginning of a glorious career painting many military scenes from French history. The Franco-Prussian War had a profound effect on the artist particularly as it forced him to see war in person. On the outbreak of war he enlisted in the 8th Mobile Bataillon and by November 1870 was attached to General Ducrots staff seeing action in the fighting around Paris. On the Marne he saw regiments under fire, groups of skirmishes dispatched to the front and senseless retreats. These experiences of war enabled him to produce many striking portrayals of the actions. Indeed, in 1872, he was forced to withdraw two paintings of the war from an exhibition so as not to offend Germany. Over the next few years, Detaille exhibited some of his finest paintings of the conflict such as Salut aux Blesses of 1877, La Defense de Champigny of 1879 and Le Soir de Rezonville. With de Neuville he produced two large panoramas of the battles at Champigny and Rezonville. Now a celebrity, he traveled extensively through Europe between 1879 and 1884, taking time only to visit Tunisia with a French expeditionary force where he was witness to some fighting. In Britain, he painted a review of British troops by the Prince of Wales, and a scene showing Scots Guards in Hyde Park. It was at this time that Detaille was developing a deep interest in the French army and he produced all the drawings and plates for Jules Richards Types et Uniformes de lArmee Francaise, 390 images in all. With all his work, Detaille painted a slow and methodical way so as to produce his subjects naturally and realistically, but most important of all, truthfully. By the 1890s Detaille was turning more and more to the campaign of Napoleon and he produced many striking battle scenes including dashing cavalry charges. He used many original items of uniform and weapons to give authenticity to his pictures, and many of these artifacts were used in the creation of the Musee de lArmee in Paris which Detaille helped to found. Edouard Detaille died on 23rd December 1912.

Edouard Detaille

Edouard Detaille Page





FEATURED ARTIST - WILLIAM BARNES WOLLEN

  Born Leipzig, Germany 1857; died London 1936. Along with Woodville and Hillingford, Wollen may be regarded as one of the most prolific illustrators and artists of battle pictures of the late Victorian/early Edwardian era. He studied at the Slade School and exhibited his first picture at the Royal Academy in 1879. Two years later came his first military picture. The rescue of Private Andrews by Captain Garnet J. Wolseley ... at the storming of the Motee Mahal, Lucknow. Thereafter, he exhibited over thirty battle and campaign pictures at Burlington House, his last being in 1922. As was the case with his contemporaries, Wollen was attracted to the period of the Napoleonic Wars as a source for many of his pictures such as The Black Watch at bay, Quatre Bras (The Black Watch), The 28th at Waterloo (Bristol Museum and Art Gallery), Norman Ramsay at Fuentes Onoro and The 10th Hussars at Benevente. In 1898, he painted The last stand of the 44th Regiment at Gundamuck, 1842 (National Army Museum), but for the next five years, he devoted his work to depicting contemporary events, starting with The 21st Lancers at Omdurman (The Staff College), although he had painted The Battle of Abu Klea (National Army Museum) in 1896. During this period, he served in South Africa as a special artist for a new illustrated paper, The Sphere, and sent back numerous scenes from the war. Several oil paintings were a direct result of his experiences: The Imperial Light Horse at Waggon Hill, January 6, 1900, The Imperial Light Horse at Elandslaagte (Light Horse Regiment, South Africa), The Victoria Cross (Durban Art Museum) and The 1st Battalion South Lancashire Regiment, storming the Boer trenches at Pieter's Hill (Queen's Lancashire Regiment). With the end of the war, Wollen returned to painting retrospective battle/campaign pictures such as Scouts (The Royal Hussars) showing a patrol of the 10th Light Dragoons in the Peninsula, Ambushed (Sunderland Art Gallery), 18th century cavalry ambushed on a road, and The first fight for independence, depicting the engagement at Lexington Common during the American Revolution. The Great War inspired him to paint several canvases, notably Defeat of the Prussian Guard, Ypres, 1914 (Royal Green Jackets) The London Territorials at Pozieres (National Army Museum), and Semper Fidelis: the last stand of the 2nd Devons at Bois des Buttes, May 27th, 1918 (The Devon and Dorset Regiment). Wollen was also an active illustrator and painter in water-colours, exhibiting many pictures at the various London exhibitions.

William Barnes Wollen

William Barnes Wollen Page




POSTCARDS



We have published hundreds of collectable military, naval and aviation postcards, including some featuring classic artists. You can see these fantastic collection here.

MILITARY ART POSTCARDS

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