Command, signals, dispatch riders, military police, tank crews, musicians and other support subjects.
NA056 portrays General Dorsenne in the imposing dress of a senior Imperial Guard officer. The mounted figure adds a named personality to the Guard subjects while keeping the rider’s uniform and bearing at the center.
NA027 gives a mounted staff officer something unusually specific to do: attend to a sheet of paper. The figure turns attention from the spectacle of command to the written information that helped make it function.
NA053 carries a large Union-pattern color that rises well above the Black Watch officer. The flag becomes the visual center of the piece, with the smaller human figure explaining who bears it.
NA052 is an unusually forceful musician subject. The drummer has turned a long firearm into a close-combat weapon, while the drum remains strapped to his body and makes the action look awkward in a revealing way.
NA047 lifts a Black Watch officer above the foot figures on a rearing horse. The raised forelegs and the rider’s tall bonnet give the piece a much larger visual presence than the standing command subjects.
NA038 is an officer at rest, with a restrained gesture and a clear view of the Highland uniform. He supplies a calm center for the early Black Watch group rather than another large action pose.
The long polearm is the defining feature of NA037. It gives the sergeant height and authority beside the standing Black Watch infantry, even before the viewer notices the sash and other uniform details.
NA035 carries the sound of the regiment into the cabinet. The pipes, dark feather bonnet, red coat and tartan kilt make him immediately recognizable among the Black Watch figures.
The dark blue coat, red waistcoat and trousers, and cocked hat give this naval officer a formal eighteenth-century appearance. He is a reminder that Del Prado’s Napoleonic collection also reaches into the revolutionary years that preceded Napoleon’s empire.
The red jacket, pale braiding and green trousers make this trumpeter stand out from ordinary French cavalry. Del Prado shows him on foot, allowing the clothing and instrument to be studied without a horse obscuring the lower body.
