Spanish Cuirassier and Light Cavalryman, Villegas, Hand Colored Lithograph, 1861

An original hand colored lithograph of two Spanish cavalrymen riding across open country, drawn on the stone and lithographed by Villegas and printed in Madrid in 1861. The lower margin is lettered "Villegas dibujó y litografió" at left and "Lit. Militar S. Bernardino 7. Madrid" at right, and the artist's signature appears again within the image at lower left.

On the left a cuirassier sits a gray horse at a walk. He wears a steel helmet with brass fittings and a tall red plume, a polished breastplate over a dark blue coat with gold epaulettes and a collar numbered 2, red trousers and high boots, with a white valise strapped behind the saddle and a blue and yellow saddle cloth. On the right a light cavalryman on a bay horse wears a blue jacket closed with rows of black frogging, a white crossbelt, red trousers and a blue shako with a red band, a horn badge and a blue plume; a carbine hangs at his right side and a wooden fence closes the view behind him.

The plate belongs to the Album de la Caballería Española, the illustrated history of the Spanish cavalry compiled by Serafín María de Sotto, Count of Clonard, and published in Madrid in 1861 with hand colored lithographs drawn by Villegas and printed at the military lithographic press in the Calle de San Bernardino. The album follows the mounted arm of Spain from its earliest days to the reign of Isabel II, showing troopers and officers in the dress, arms and horse furniture of their regiments.

The coloring is laid on by hand over the printed image in clear watercolor, with the blues, reds and gilt of the uniforms picked out carefully against the soft sandy ground, and the composition is enclosed in a ruled frame with rounded corners. Plates of this series are far scarcer than French and German costume prints of the same years, and a single plate holds its own in a study or library.

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