....and he who sat on it had the name...Napoleon.
Well I couldn't fight my first battle without him. The battle was fought last Sunday, but before setting it all up I had just enough time to photograph him.
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| The Emperor surveyed the stricken field... |
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| ....mounted on his famous steed, Marengo. |
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| "How different history would have been", he thought, |
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| "if only I had been allowed.... |
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| ...to run away.... |
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| ....and join the circus". |
The figure, of course, is Hinton Hunt
FN 350: Napoleon, in hat and riding coat, on horse
FNH 10. He was that rare and special thing - a vintage Hinton Hunt casting which had never been painted before. He is now firmly glued to his horse!
He is dedicated to Wellington Girl, who showed me how to make him perform circus tricks.
WM
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| The battlefield awaits! |
a bit of nostalgia on the battlefield. I recognise the mill and cottage from my Dad's model railway. Can't wait to see the lads in action. As to the Man, how do you achieve that magic that the figures actually get better in zoom? Does Wellington Girl know that she is forcing a whole generation of eccentrics to re evaluate their obsessions? I take it she's going to be a psychotherapist...........
ReplyDeleteWG's dry and subtle sabotage of my pretensions frequently has me helpless with laughter, Archduke.
DeleteI think the magic zoom is caused by not reducing the file size of the photos before posting them. They only look crystal clear when they are embiggened!
Monsieur Bonaparte and horse are lovely, as is the tabletop battlefield. I take it we might expect a battle report with loads of photos before long?
ReplyDeleteBest Regards,
Stokes
Baron Lejeune is sorting through his sketches and will be exhibiting the results very soon, Stokes.
DeleteLove the terrain - really clean and functional just like the 'old books' - it's what I am trying to recreate in a way with my toy soldiers. I suppose the disrespect to the Emperor by 'er indoors will have to be tolerated as a quid pro quo for her toleration of boys with toys. I also am blessed with a tolerant other half.
ReplyDeleteCheers Rob. I'm a great fan of Grantesque simplicity. It looks and feels right for old soldiers like these. They glide across the surface in the most pleasing manner.
DeleteWellington Girl is my daughter, aged of 11. Although she likes to affect disdain for Daddy's toys these days, I know she remains secretly fascinated by the horses. I caught her playing with the Emperor when my back was turned!
Mrs WM says that as long as it can all be packed away again out of sight she can live with it.
Lovely (and unusual!) post!
ReplyDeleteWG's girl's-eye view of the world keeps me sane, Phil!
DeleteAhh, one day it will be necessary to have a permanent home for the table, which does look brutally retro, a bit like one of those 60s concrete buildings which were all the rage amongst architects around the time that Hinton Hunts were being designed. We always used books draped with a green cloth, being a softer, more comfortable look. If you have a spare Napoleon then perhaps you could have him waving an arm and shouting 'Au moulin a vent, mes enfants!'
ReplyDeleteI think you've hit the nail on the head, LG. I've always felt that there was a kind of spiritual bond between Grant and Le Corbusier!
DeleteI think the tabletop may actually be from the 1960s. It's one half of an old ping pong table made of the most solid lump of 3/4 inch plywood that I've ever encountered. It weighs a ton. The other half is in the basement, awaiting the expansion of my armies. I picked them up from the Wellington city tip for $10. It is slightly but pleasingly distressed. Some of the divots make one wonder whether they were using ball bearings instead of ping pongs.
Matt, your table looks spiffing! Is that the Airfix windmill?
ReplyDeleteTony S
It is indeed, Tony. Also featured are Merit trees, walls and hedges and the Airfix cottage. I'm very conservative about these things!
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