SIR FRANCIS CHANTREY (1781-1841)
Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington (1769-1852)
signed & dated 1837RCIN 2011
Although the two great military leaders Wellington and Napoleon had campaigned against one another for years before 1815, Waterloo was the only occasion when they faced one another directly on the battlefield. Wellington later recalled that the result was ‘the nearest-run thing you ever saw in your life’. The victory ensured he became a national hero and a number of portrait busts of the Duke appear in the Royal Collection.