These products are not advisable for unders 14 years old unless supervised by an adult.
OR 8 Lt-Gen. the Hon. George Cathcart Staff Set.
The personality figure at the far right of the frame is based very directly on a lithograph of General Cathcart and his staff at the Battle of Berea. The lithograph was based in its turn on an oil painting by Thomas Goodrich who had been present at Berea as a lieutenant in the Cape Mounted Rifles (CMR). General Cathcart also led Anglo-colonial forces against the amaXhosa in the 8th Cape Frontier War, for which this set is also eminently suitable.
In the foreground is an infantry officer on foot, clad in a red shell jacket. If you are painting him for the 43rd Light Infantry, the top of his cap is green, but for other regiments and the staff it would be dark blue. The hatband is black for line and light infantry alike. His waistbelt and sword slings are black, but his revolver holster would be a privately purchased item, more than likely in brown leather. In the infantry sword scabbards were black leather with gilt fittings, but in the cavalry they were steel. The mounted officer beside the infantry officer shielding his eyes could be a field officer (major or lieutenant-colonel) of infantry, or alternatively a staff officer in any rank from captain upwards. The frock coats are all dark blue. Staff officers' forage caps had a gold lace hatband and a gold edged peak. To the right a staff officer rides up beside the general, who is wearing an unusual forage cap for an officer, in that it has no peak. In the 1830s Cathcart had been the commanding officer of the King's Dragoon Guards and it may be that he chose to wear an antiquated pattern of regimental forage cap from that period.
At the rear is Lt Gough, 12th Lancers, whose troop provided General Cathcart's escort at the Battle of Berea. He is wearing a light cavalry officers' undress jacket, in dark blue, with matching overalls. The overalls had a broad yellow stripe down the seam. The body of the jacket is trimmed in gold lace, as are the red collar and cuffs. In undress the officers crossbelt was in plain white leather, with a black pouch. The officers with revolver holsters would not be suitable for any date prior to 1851, a big year for the revolver, when Colt and Deane & Adams both exhibited their wares at the Great Exhibition.