[Original Watercolor] Soldier Playing Trumpet Astride a White Horse Moving with a Lively Gait, an Aqueduct in the Background

France, 1818. Near Fine. A lively and colorful painting of two members of the French garde du corps or cuirassier -- mounted cavalry, in uniforms that resemble those used during the Bourbon Restoration -- 1815 to 1830. Scribbled in pencil on the back is the date 1818, but we don't know exactly what this is intended to signify. Whether that date has specific significance, or using the wider range of dates for the Restoration period, we certainly can not assert that the painting was done contemporaneously with the period it is depicting. But since we know that the painting was once mounted in an album, and the album paper was a type found in Victorian, (truncated) or nineteenth century albums, we are comfortably dating the painting to the nineteenth century. The painting looks professionally done, and as if it were intended as an illustration for a book. We couldn't another copy of the painting, or for that matter, of a uniform like the one worn by the trumpet, with its wide, bold, vertical striped of both the coat and breeches. The painting is signed by an initial or initials and possibly a number -- we aren't able to interpret what is a stylized signature of sorts. In any case, even if the painting is a copy, it was done exceedingly well. The painting measures 26.5 by 21 cm. The back has light soiling as well as vestiges in the corners of album paper onto which it was once mounted. In terms of the image, there are no issues. The paper along the upper edge has a closed tear at most a mm long. (Inventory #: 20256)