"Go on! give the Saxons a go.." Topic

A much under rated army to collect – Great Northern War era Saxons – who else but the Emperor himself has so many cuirassier regiments?

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Everything I've read about the Saxons indicates that their cuirassiers wore buff coats on campaign, with only officers wearing the red coat (cuirasses underneath). However, I respect Gunter's research on anything Saxon and would like to know if he looked up his depiction, or just preferred to go with the "parade" look.

The figures are fab, btw!

IIRC I read a statement by a Swedish participant at the battle of Fraustadt in 1706 that Saxon cuirassiers had cuirasses under the coat. Of course that was in February.

Certainly one regiment wore buff coats.. Gunter is yer man on the Saxon Army, not much that he doesn't seem to be able to put his hands on info wise..

I'll ask on your own forum and then bring the answer back here for whoever else is interested.

Swedish sources such as paintings do show the red coat being worn as early as the Düna 1701. Of course it could be artistic license make the two sides distinctive but Lemke had no problem depicting sides in very similar clothing in his Scanian war paintings.

The Victorian/Edwardian era artist Gustaf Cederstrom's very evocative paintings of the Swedes during the GNW take more than a few liberties with depictions of dress.
The fantastic painting of the Swedes praying at Fraustadt

shows the cavalry in buff coats, pinned back and in cuirasses.This is 1706. The imagery, although alluring is questionable to say the least.

Caution advised when making decisions on how to paint any army of the period! The Saxons were beaten and re clothed so many times that even within a single battalion several coat and hat styles and colours might be found.

The flip side is that almost anything a gamer painted could not be definitively proven or dismissed.. Happy days!

Sorry to bring this on here, but despite being a registered member of "Fighting Talk" I cannot log in until I change my password. Unfortunately, having done this, I still cannot get in and am being asked to change my password again.

Can you help?

Pls mail me with you forum ID on wordtwister@hotmail.co.uk and I'll sort it

cheers

Thanks – email sent.

Fully agree with the need to use pictorial sources carefully but Lemke and his circle are hardly in the same category as Cederström.

Cederström (1845-1933) is an interesting painter who certainly dug deep into the collections of the Swedish army museum and Royal armory in search of authentic dress and equipment. The only problem was that the understanding of Carolean equipment was not particularly good at the time and he ended up using later uniforms on more than a few paintings or too early or specialised equipment on others. For example the "Fraustadt" painting is based on the equipment of the Drabants of Karl XI rather than the actual uniforms worn in the field.

Lemke or more properly Johan Philip Lemke (1631-1711) was the official battle painter of the Swedish court in the reign of Karl XI and his work was carried on by his circle of students including Daniel Stawert who probably painted many/most of the GNW paintings traditionaly atributed to Lemke. Lemke and Stawert relied on first hand information when painting, Lemke worked closely with Erik Dahlberg while Stawert relied much on Johan Lithen (a military engineer and artist in his own right that took part in the GNW up to 1705)

So used with care together with written sources I do considere the paintings of Lemke and Stawert to be usefull sources. However they should not be treated as modern day photographs. (Indeed that is how several books on Swedish uniforms ended up with errors for the 1655-1660 and 1675-1679 wars)