The Village of Waterloo, with travellers purchasing the relics that were found in the field of battle, 1815 (c)

Oil on panel by George Jones (1786-1869), 1821 (c).

A Prussian soldier offers items to a mounted hussar, while a woman sells military relics from the battlefield of Waterloo to a highlander and some tourists.

In the centre of the painting, a coach with basketwork panniers prepares to leave, possibly returning visitors to Brussels, just as a cartload of red-coated bodies, those of British soldiers, arrive in the village. Mounted Lancers wait outside the public house, while one cavalryman on crutches hobbles towards the group.

The artist, George Jones, one of the most prolific battle painters of the nineteenth century, studied art at the Royal Academy schools before obtaining a Captaincy in the South Devon Militia. He visited the field of Waterloo immediately after the battle and made drawings on the spot. The scene depicted here may be taken as an eye-witness record of the trading in small relics as souvenirs, which may well have been stripped from the dead on the field.