Overall: 46.5cm (18.5in) x 62cm (24.5in)
Provenance: Baron Ventry
Watercolour on paper. Royal Artillery Militia, identifiable by their white / silver lace as opposed to the yellow for other ranks and gold for officers of the regular RA, unlimbering a field gun. Signed ‘Orlando Norie’ lower right. Image: 30.5cm x 45cm. The reverse bearing gallery label of the Dublin picture dealer Cranfield of Grafton Street, and a storage label inscribed 'Rt.Hon Lord Ventry’, dated 1926. Framed and glazed.
In the 1850s the control of appointments in the Royal Artillery militia were largely in the hands of the Lord Lieutenant of individual counties. The Barons Ventry were Deputy Lieutenants in County Kerry for several generations and were no doubt familiar with the practice of appointing influential members of the ‘gentry' to commissions in the Militia rather than finding applicants with the appropriate service qualifications and experience. It was a practice that led to considerable ill feeling among some officers of the Royal Artillery whose views were forcefully expounded in the newspapers and military journals of the day. Concern was expressed over the fact that, unlike the infantry where commissions could be purchased, it took two years hard work and training at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich to make an Artillery officer. That said, it should be noted several of the Lords Ventry were themselves professional soldiers.
Orlando Norie (1832-1901) belonged to a branch of the well-known family of Scottish painters, active in artistic life since the time of James Norie the Elder in the early eighteenth century. He is thought to have been taught by his father, Robert, a prosperous manufacturer and amateur artist who left Scotland for the continent in 1821, staying first in France and then for a long period in Belgium. The family returned to France in 1851 in much reduced circumstances, settling in Dunkirk, where Orlando was to remain. Although Norie was known in France as a painter of everyday scenes and genre works, he is best remembered as a military illustrator working primarily in watercolour. His output was published widely and appeared on postcards, in magazines and regimental histories. His talent was first recognised in the autumn of 1854 when the London printmaking firm of Rudolf Ackermann published his picture of the Battle of the Alma. This was followed by prints of the Crimean battles of Inkermann and Balaclava, and later episodes of the Indian Mutiny. Ackermann’s Eclipse Sporting and Military Gallery served as the main outlet for many of Norie’s original works. He was viewed as the natural successor to Henry Martens (fl.1825-1865) and received royal patronage of Queen Victoria.