Live Auction 1546The Raglan Collection: Wellington, Waterloo and The Crimea And Works of Art from the Collection of the Marquesses of Londonderry
Julia Macdonald, 19th Century
Lot 49 'You are aware how useful he has always been to me, and how much I shall feel the want of his assistance, and what a regard and affection I feel for him, and you will readily believe how much concerned I am... I hope he will soon be able to join me again' - The Duke of Wellington to the Duke of Beaufort after Lord FitzRoy Somerset's operation

Julia Macdonald, 19th Century

Waterloo, showing the house where Lord FitzRoy Somerset's arm was amputated after the battle, on the evening of June 18th 1815

Closed23 May 2014

Price Realised

GBP 2,125

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Julia Macdonald, 19th Century
Waterloo, showing the house where Lord FitzRoy Somerset's arm was amputated after the battle, on the evening of June 18th 1815
with inscription 'Waterloo/In the House where the second sign/hangs out, Lord Fitzroy Somerset's right arm was amputated after the Battle on/the Evening of June 18th 1815.-/Drawn by Miss Julia Macdonald.' (on an old label attached to the reverse)
pencil and brown wash heightened with white on paper
4½ x 6½ in. (11.5 x 16.5 cm.)

Specialist note

At approximately 7 o'clock in the evening during the battle of Waterloo, Lord FitzRoy Somerset was hit by a French marksman from the roof of La Haye-Sainte. The musket ball smashed his right elbow beyond repair and it had to be amputated. He is reputed to have said after the surgeon discarded his severed arm: 'bring my arm back. There's a ring my wife gave me on the finger'; this may well have been that given to her by her uncle the Duke of Wellington, who himself had taken it from the collection of Tipu Sultan after the battle of Seringapatam in 1799 (see lot 10).