Item Details: Framed oil painting on board by James Devine Aylward, painted 1917. C. 18.5cm x 28cm.
About the Item
This artwork shows the Duke of Wellington at first light on 18th June 1815, the morning of the Battle of Waterloo. It portrays a well-known moment in the history of the 95th Rifles, set at Maison Valette, a small cottage on the Charleroi–Brussels road, about 100 metres behind Wellington’s front line.
The cottage served as the headquarters of Colonel Sir Andrew Barnard, commanding officer of the 1st Battalion, 95th Rifles. His men had reached the position only hours before nightfall after a gruelling retreat in torrential rain. As Sir William Cope recorded in The History of the Rifle Brigade:
“The retreat continued through incessant torrents of rain… The Riflemen did not reach the position of Waterloo till a couple of hours before dark. There they bivouacked… near a small cottage where Sir Andrew Barnard had established his quarters.”
Throughout the night the weather remained severe, with heavy rain and a thunderstorm rolling across the ridge. By dawn the downpour had eased, leaving the ground wet, mist rising from the fields, and the day breaking grey and cool. Cope described:
“At daylight the men sprang to their feet… cleaning their arms and accoutrements, moistened and rusted by so many hours of wet.”
With their equipment restored as best they could, the Riflemen formed up and moved into position for the battle ahead. The painting captures this charged moment of transition, from a night of discomfort and exhaustion to the tense calm of a day that would become one of the most decisive in European history.
About the Artist
James Devine Aylward was born in 1870. He built a career as his artist, exhibiting his works widely within England: he had 33 works displayed in the Walker Art Gallery, and 15 at the Royal Institute of Oil Painters.
Following the outbreak of World War I, he found he could no longer make a living as an artist, and became a banker in London, where he would later befriend T.S. Eliot. He had a strong interest in fencing and motorcars that lasted throughout his life, and in his 70s he began publishing articles and books on the history of fencing that remain seminal works to this day.
