The Grenadier’s Drill — Raising the Grenade and Match
€120
- Cartographer
- Pierre Jacques François Girard
- Date
- 1740
- Publication
- Traité des armes · Den Haag, P. de Hondt, 1740
- Plate
- 113e planche · p. 151
- Medium
- Hand-colored engraving heightened with gold
- Condition
- Paper toned with darker edges, scattered marks and light creasing. Faint old handwriting in the upper margin. The image shows through on the reverse.
About this piece
Heightened with gold!
Beautiful hand-colored engraving heightened with gold from Pierre Jacques François Girard’s Traité des armes. Den Haag, P. de Hondt, 1740.
113e planche · “Prenés la grenade. haut la grenade. haut la meche.”
Three figures show the grenadier taking the grenade, raising it and then lifting the lit match. The slung musket stays behind the shoulder throughout, while the small curl of smoke makes the final movement easy to pick out.
The three coats are hand-colored in green, scarlet and blue, with gold on the facings, cuffs and trimmings. The matching yellow stockings and green ground tie the three positions together.
Girard’s illustrated manual documents small-sword fencing, foreign guards and the weapons and drills of the French military in the eighteenth century.