"Artillery Painting?" Topic

Something for the game room. When the horse and musket armies are on the table, I have a print of "Scotland Forever!" for the cavalry and "Regulars, by God!" for the infantry. What in your opinion is the artillery painting which deserves to go on the walls with those two? (And where can I find a print?)

My vote is Keith Rocco's "Forward by Bricole":

Around these parts, it would be hard to beat 'Bricoles go to war!'
: 3

Oh no! The B-word!
Think of the Children!

I've a few of the Kunstler ACW prints on my walls….

1st Ohio Volunteers

link

Depending on the period you are interesting in

Looked but did not find a picture of Bragg's battery at Buena Vista, other than one done in the Currier & Ives style. <Sigh>

Grelber

A few here

link

Gibbons at Antietam

Cedar Creek

Borodino Panorama

Artillery bit:
link

The Rocco painting of General Gibbon with his old battery at Antietam is excellent, as are all of Keith Rocco's work.

I have a copy of that painting in our television room. And it protrays an actual incident where the battery, which was attached to Gibbon's Iron Brigade (Battery B, 4th US Artillery) was shooting high, and Gibbon galloped over to the battery, dismounted, and adjusted the elevation on the subject piece.

There are three noteworthy artillery paintings by Jack Girbal in Francois-Guy Hourtoulle's Soldiers and Uniforms of Napoleonic Wars.

The first, on page 113 shows a Guard Artillery 12-pounder in action at Wagram in July 1809. The artist correctly shows the gunners in shakos, as they were not yet authoritzed to wear the bearskin and also shows two Old Guard infantrymen assisting the gunners because of casualties on the gun line. Antoine Druout was their commander.

The second painting, also by Girbal, shows a Royal Horse Artillery gun section (two pieces) at Waterloo in June 1815. One piece has just fired, and the other is being relaid after firing.

On page 76 there is a third painting of artillery by Girbal depicting one of the field pieces limbered up from the two-gun artillery company of the Bataillon de Neufchatel. The four-horse team for the piece is correct and the print shows both gunners and drivers from the train troops.

This is an impression of General Senarmont's grande batterie at Friedland on 14 June 1807:

link

Sadly, as far as I can see, there does not seem to be as many inspiring or action shots concerning artillery compared to the mass of images you can find displaying cavalry and infantry in action.

However, an excellent print of a Wurttemberg gun and crew in action can be found in With Napoleon In Russia by Major Faber du Faur. (plate 30)

There is also a good print showing French Horse Artillery going into action in The Battle of Ocana by Pierre O.Juhel (page 95) Histoire & Collections series.

Another interesting action print displays Mercer's British Horse artillery facing off French cavalry at Waterloo. This is in Wellington's Guns by Nick Lipscombe (Plate 17) The link below shows the same print but it is a bit costly. But perhaps, if you can obtain a copy of the book, you could scan or photocopy the image and have it enlarged?

auction

I'm not sure if I have managed to link these okay but they show images of French artillery in action.

auction

auction

I'm sure there must be good artillery action images out there and it will be interesting to see what people come up with.

I forgot to mention that a few interesting artillery in action images can be found in Fighting Techniques of the Napoleonic Age by Bruce, Dickie, Kiley, Pavkovic and Schneid. These are in Chapter 6: Artillery and Siege Warfare and include Prussian artillery at Ligny, 1815 (page 175), Napoleon sighting a gun at the Battle of La Rothiere 1814 (pages 182-183) and one my favourites, Napoleon sighting a gun at the Battle of Lodi, 1796 (pages 186-187), which is where it all began, so to speak. Very inspiring.

I forgot to mention that a few interesting artillery in action images can be found in Fighting Techniques of the Napoleonic Age by Bruce, Dickie, Kiley, Pavkovic and Schneid. These are in Chapter 6: Artillery and Siege Warfare and include Prussian artillery at Ligny, 1815 (page 175), Napoleon sighting a gun at the Battle of La Rothiere 1814 (pages 182-183) and one my favourites, Napoleon sighting a gun at the Battle of Lodi, 1796 (pages 186-187), which is where it all began, so to speak. Very inspiring.

Their is a dearth of information on artillery, as well as engineers, in the literature for the period for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that both arms are technical as well as combat arms, and to write about either or both of them requires some understanding of the technical side of the equation.

I have found the following material useful and it is not an exhaustive list.

Osprey has published material on the French, Austrian, and Prussian artillery arms and Nick Lipscombe and CE Franklin have both published excellent work on the Royal Artillery. Duncan's book on the Royal Artillery is very helpful and Duffy has written on the problems with Frederick the Great on the Prussian artillery (that lasted through the Napoleonic Wars).

Howard Rosen did his PHD thesis on the Gribeauval System and did excellent archival research on the subject that sagely contradicts some more modern 'interpretations' on that system.

There are excellent period artillery manuals that are worth reading, as well as period memoirs by artillerymen such as Boulart, Noel, and Mercer.

Artillery manuals with much technical information can be found in books by Gassendi, Smola, Tousard, Scharnhorst, Adye, Ruty, Allix, Persy, Benjamin Robinson, Monhaupt, Muller, Kosciusko, Descheel, d'Urtubie and Alexander Dickson's Manuscripts as well as Fraser's letters are of great help in understranding the artillery of the period.

Duteil's Usage is excellent and lays out quite succinctly the artillery doctrine that was put into effect by the French in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic periods. It is the only artillery manual that talks about artillery employment above the company/battery level.

Louis Malinowsky and Robert Bonin produced an excellent 3-volume work on the Prussian artillery arm, and, more recently Alexander Zhmodikov and Yurii Zhmodikov did excellent coverage of the Russian artillery arm, its problems and improvements, in their two-volume The Tactics of the Russian Army in the Napoleonic Wars.

Lastly, but certainly not least, is Girod de l'Ain's Grands Artilleurs: Drouot, Senarmont, Eble which has considerable primary source material in it.

To answer the question put in the OP, I would highly recommend any of the artillery prints produced by Keith Rocco.

I have three:

-Lodi.

-Norman Ramsay's artillery escapade at Fuentes d'Onoro. This is not the Rocco print, but it is also excellent.

link

-One of a French line gunner standing by his piece.

I have all three, two of them framed on the wall (Numbers 1 & 3).

Keith Rocco's work can be found here:

keithrocco.com/inventory

Maybe a almost all artillery battle

Not sure why two identical posts from me came up?

Kevin's Lodi image is different to the one found in the Fighting Techniques book but very inspiring, artillery wise, all the same.

Robert,
Not What you asked for, but several others have pointed out that artillery was a "Scientific" arm. In some ways, it might be appropriate to consider a line drawing like this one of a Napoleonic era gun carriage: link Not as dramatic as an oil painting of the battery going into action, but perhaps more in the spirit of the arm.

(You will need to scroll down a bit)

Grelber

That line drawing, which is excellent, is of a field piece and limber of the Systeme AN XI which was designed to replace the Gribeauval system.

Only two field pieces of the new system were fielded in any numbers, the 6-pounder long gun and the 5.5-inch howitzer. The gun carriages were not popular in the artillery companies, and the older, sturdier gun carriages were then used again. The new artillery vehicles were not placed in production or use.

The Systeme AN XI never replaced the older Gribeauval System during the wars, but merely supplemented it.

More artillery prints by Jack Girbal:

French Foot Artillery:

link

French Guard Horse Artillery: