Overall: 50cm (20in) x 50cm (20in)
Watercolour on paper. Vignettes illustrating the uniforms of the five light dragoon regiments that used the ‘20th’ designation between 1706 and 1818, together with a vignette of an officer in mounted review order of the 2nd Bengal European Light Cavalry (1871). The 2nd BELC was formed in India after the 1857 Mutiny and was transferred to the British Army in 1861 as hussars. It was assigned the then vacant 20th place in the cavalry order of precedence. Signed and dated 1882 ‘R.W.’ for Richard Wymer.
Major Reginald Augustus Wymer (1849-1935) was by turns a soldier, artist, Deputy-Chief Constable of Hertfordshire and father to a wayward son. Born in Upper Berkeley Street, Westminster, the youngest son of General Sir George Wymer, K.C.B., and his wife Emily, daughter of Sir C.F. Crespigny, he was a commissioned into the 91st (Argyllshire) Highlanders in 1870. He gave early proof to his creative talents by designing costumes for the D’Oyly Carte comic opera Ruddigore that premiered at the Savoy Theatre in 1887. The problems with his son, also named Reginald, began after the latter’s return from the South African War and the pawning of a diamond brooch belonging to an actress. A widely reported court case ensued in which the penniless Reginald junior, a former subaltern in the Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders, was found to be the guilty party. Reginald junior’s troubles continued with his attempts to earn a living by betting on horses, and peaked with a sentence of three months’ hard labour for trying to defraud a clergyman. Throughout these dramas, Wymer senior continued as a reserve officer of the 3rd Bn. Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders. He retired from the Army in 1905, but returned during the First World War as a captain on the General List. His military pictures were widely collected, and his patrons included Queen Victoria, Edward VII and Queen Mary.