Recreating a famous painting of Fontenoy in miniature

After all the build-up and excitement of the amazing Chunuk Bair diorama project, I’ve been at a bit of a loose end as to what to do next. I didn’t want to start a new period from scratch, plus nothing really appealed for adding to my existing armies.  It was almost looking like I had lost my painting mojo all together.

But then the other day I came across some news that I think has solved my crisis!

Ever since I first read Charles Grant’s 1975 book The Battle of Fontenoy many years ago, I’ve been fascinated by its cover illustration, Henri Félix Emmanuel Philippoteaux’s 1873 painting entitled The Battle of Fontenoy, 1745: The French and the Allies Confronting Each Other.

I even did a posting about this picture here on my blog a couple of years ago.

So when I came across a snippet of news the other day that Crann Tara Miniatures are planning on making 1/56th figures based specifically on this painting, my heart sang!

I would now be able to recreate my favourite military painting in miniature – a perfect project to go with my somewhat stalled Barrayat of Lyndonia imagi-nation project.

So far Crann Tara’s Gardes Françaises range only has a couple of infantrymen in it – and these aren’t in quite the right pose to match the painting.

But owner Graham C. says, “The next two Garde figures will be the kneeling and standing figures from the painting. They’re being sculpted at the moment. Some of the other pieces, NCOs etc will make their appearance later.”

I really hope these forthcoming figures don’t have separate muskets, though. One of my pet hates is attaching weapons to figures. Not only is the gluing job a real pain, but the hands never end up looking right, and the joins are fragile.

Anyway, I’m really looking forward to seeing this new range develop, and getting my teeth into painting what has to be one of my favourite 18th century uniforms.