Dawn of Waterloo. The 'Reveille' in the bivouac of the Scots Greys on the morning of the battle, 1815

This major painting, now acquired by the National Army Museum with Art Fund support, records a group of the Scots Greys on the dawn of the battle – waking from their slumber on the muddy ground as the Reveille sounded. The work is especially remarkable for two reasons. First, it was painted by a woman; and, at that time, the art of war was a predominantly male field. Lady Butler was married to a senior army officer; but she had visited the site of the Battle of Waterloo at the age of 19, and it made a significant impression. She went on to become one of the foremost painters of battle scenes, and this one was painted during the final five years of the 19th century.   

The second particularly remarkable thing about this work is that it depicts ordinary soldiers. War painting is full of depictions of the great and the grand. Here, by contrast, we have a group of young soldiers readying themselves for what may well have been for many of them their first battle. The men of the Scots Greys were not battle-hardened soldiers, but relatively young and inexperienced men who had been held in reserve prior to Waterloo. The role they were to play in the battle was decisive, but they suffered grievous casualties. Of 416 men who went into battle, 102 died and a further 97 were wounded. Lady Butler depicts them with real empathy. She knew, all too well, that for many of them this would have been the last dawn they were to see.    

At a time when Europe has once again been riven by war, and the hideous destruction visited upon Ukraine is a stark reminder of the inhumanity that conflict can bring, Lady Butler’s comment in her autobiography is sharply poignant: ‘I never painted for the glory of war, but to portray its pathos and heroism.’ Heroic men, and pathos in what was to befall many of them, and yet a crucial turning point in the history of Europe. This is a painting full of the conflicting emotions, the certainties and uncertainties, the complexities, the troubling of the spirit that war always brings. Its importance in the collection of the National Army Museum cannot be overemphasised.    

The museum has hitherto had only three relatively minor works in oil by Lady Butler, but they do hold eight preliminary sketches for Dawn of Waterloo, and this gives a fascinating insight into the way in which she worked up the painting, first in her home in County Wicklow, and then when she and her husband moved to Aldershot. To have been able to make this acquisition, when finished works by this artist rarely come onto the market, has been an outstanding opportunity for the museum; and to be able to unite the sketches with the completed work is especially opportune.   

Thirty-five years ago, the National Army Museum held an exhibition of Lady Butler’s work, and the time is now surely ripe for another such exhibition, with Dawn of Waterloo at its centre. The museum’s determination to develop educational materials around the painting – to tell more comprehensively the story of how the battle developed, how it succeeded, what its costs were in terms of human life and injury, and who it was who fought – will help to develop public understanding not only of Waterloo and the Napoleonic period but of the nature of warfare itself.    

Sometimes, after all, it is necessary to take up arms against aggression. But it should never be done without a careful sense of what the potential outcomes may realistically be, and what the impact is on those who participate in the fighting. It is a lesson all too real in the here and now. It is a lesson this painting can undoubtedly help to illuminate.