Wounded Cuirassier Leaving the Field

1814

Oil on canvas, 358 × 294 cm. Musée du Louvre, Paris

A heavy cavalryman leads his horse down a slope on foot, his eyes turned up toward the sky. The canvas is even larger than the charging officer's, yet it shows no combat.

Shown at the Salon of 1814 under the same title it carries today.
Look at the sheathed sabre he leans on like a crutch and the rearing horse he struggles to hold.
The Louvre also holds a related oil sketch for the composition.
Defeat replaces victory: a wounded soldier turns his back on the battle, smoke still rising behind him. Shown in the year of Napoleon's first abdication, it puts doubt and loss where glory used to be.
Kept as a pair with the Chasseur, it entered the Louvre in 1851; the two cost 23,400 francs together at Louis-Philippe's estate sale.

Image: Wikimedia Commons · Public domain (PD-Art)