Camp of the 3rd Division, 15 July 1855 (w/c over pencil)

Camp of the 3rd Division, 15 July 1855. Watercolour and pencil by William Simpson (1823-1899), Crimean War, 1855. The figures in the foreground are depicted using cannon balls as bowls. The print after this watercolour was accompanied by a detailed key showing the distribution of the regiments within the camp which, according to the description, was published: ‘For the satisfaction of those to whom these camps are associated either in the past or in the present with the absent living or the unforgotten dead’. The dark, stormy sky shown moving in from the right of the picture forced the artist to seek refuge in one of the tents of the 63rd (West Suffolk) Regiment of Foot in order to finish his painting. Reproduced as Plate 12 in Simpson’s ‘Seat of War in the East’, Second Series, published by Paul and Dominic Colnaghi, London, 1856.