Spanish Cavalry Trooper and Mounted Drummer by Villegas, Clonard Album, 1861

This original hand colored lithograph comes from the Album de la Caballería Española, the great illustrated history of the Spanish cavalry published in Madrid in 1861. Two horsemen in the dress of the later seventeenth century meet on open ground: a trooper armed with a long musket, and a mounted drummer beating a drum emblazoned with the royal arms.

On the left, the trooper rides a dappled white horse at a collected walk. He wears a broad brimmed hat with a white plume, a long yellow coat with red trim and black cuffs, a bandolier of powder charges across his chest and tall riding boots, and he carries the musket with its butt resting on his thigh. On the right, the drummer sits a gray horse and wears a red coat with yellow facings, a cravat and a brown hat. The drum hangs at the horse's shoulder, its red body painted with the crowned arms of Castile and León and finished with a gold fringe, and he holds both sticks raised to play.

The Album de la Caballería Española was compiled by Lieutenant General Serafín María de Sotto, Count of Clonard, and published in Madrid in 1861. Its plates follow the Spanish cavalry from its earliest days to the reign of Isabel II, showing the arms, armor, dress and horse furniture of each period.

The plate carries the stone signature Villegas at the lower left of the image, the line "Villegas dibujó y litografió" beneath it, and the printer's line "Lit. Militar S. Bernardino 7. Madrid" at the lower right. The image is set within a double ruled border with rounded corners. The figures are printed on a cream tint and colored by hand, with the yellow, red and gray of the uniforms and horses laid on with care.

Plates from the Clonard album are much scarcer on the market than the French and German military costume prints of the same period. A pair of them makes a handsome picture for a study or a hallway.

This is an original antique print, not a modern reproduction. This item is sold unframed.