Marengo Museum Part 2 - The Austrians

As the Austrian army was my favourite and the focus of this blog I was really looking forward to seeing a lot of new resource material or learning something I didn't know already when I visited the museum at Marengo. Anything at all that I hadn't seen before would be wonderful.

What I noticed though, was that the main focus of the exhibition was on the French, especially Napoleon.

Throughout the museum there were plenty of large panel artworks on display, most of which I had previously seen in Osprey publications. These included artwork by Christa Hook and Keith Rocco, and what appeared to be the originals by Richard Hook. All very cool to see, but nothing new.

 

There was also a very nice reproduction flag. I was especially pleased at seeing this as I have been producing my own flags for my miniatures, all except the Austrians. I now have a good image to base my own artwork on so I can make my own flags. Not really a priority as these are easily available anyway.

 

 

On to the uniforms on display. There are several life size figures throughout the museum, wearing replica uniforms that were created in 2010 (according to the signage). Some of these are more than a little creepy looking and look like Madame Tussuade waxwork failures - the Austrian soldier's moustache looked really bad.

 

The first model was of an Austrian General officer. I didn't get many pictures of this guy, and most were blurry. My son had decided to run on ahead and I had to keep an eye on him. I don't think there was too much missed though.

 

 

The next was an Austrian Line Infantry in German uniform, possibly IR47 Kinsky. This was the guy with the creepy moustache and "dead" eyes. The uniform looked correct to my eyes, though there were a few details that I found myself questioning at second look. Is that casquet correct? What's going on with his trousers? I would have expected gaiters, or the trousers to be Hungarian if there were no gaiters.

 

 

 

And that was it for the Austrians. There was a lot of text on the walls, but as it was in Italian I have no idea if I missed anything important. So, slightly disappointed, but only because I was expecting a lot. Next I'll look at some French.

 

1o Reggimento Veneto Real, 1797 updated with new flags

I updated this unit with new flags a few weeks ago. These look a lot better with the stronger colours - the red and yellow contrast better and make the flags pop out more.

Revolutionary Flags (NEW RELEASE) - 4th Cavalarie (Cuirassiers) 1794

While its been quiet on the figure side of things (I'm working on a few things) the flags have been progressing.

The next is almost finished. This one was a request from Von Winterfeld on TMP who had done some fantastic conversion work to create some early French Cuirassiers.

This is the first version of that flag. There are a couple of slight questions that I need answered so this may change.

The second version will have the Royalist emblems removed and/or patched over.

Revolutionary Flags (NEW RELEASE) - 42nd (Highland) Foot Regiment 1756-59

New flags available from my Revolutionary Flags range:

The Piedmontese are now available in 15mm and 28mm, as are some new ones from an earlier period, 42nd (Highland) Foot Regiment 1756-59, both Regimental and Kings colours. These are suitable for the Seven Years War / French Indian Wars era.

The Piedmontese: Austria's Allies - Part 3 Regt Piedmont with Flags

I finally got to the printer and got a set of flags printed for my Piedmontese. I got a few sets of 15mm and a couple of 28mm, so if anybody is after these they are now available.

I also quickly did some artwork for the 42nd (Highland) Regiment, otherwise known as the Black Watch, for their 1756 colours suitable for the French Indian Wars and Seven Years War era. This was for a little side project where I was sorting out my lack of Scottish troops in my collection, which didn't seem right as I am Scottish.

There are loads of these already on the market, but those available for free were not to the standard that I wanted. So I went and did my own. Again, I got a few sets of these and the rest are available for sale at as cheap as I can afford.

So here are the Piedmontese finally 100% finished (except for the fact there are no Grenadiers or Chasseus - which I may add using Eureka's Saxons if they look ok).

The Piedmontese: Austria's Allies - Part 2 Infantry: Regt Piedmont, 1st Battalion

Yet again, its taken a while from starting these figures to getting them finished. I started them away back in September 2014, so not quite a year in the painting. Quite a success for some of my figures.

As I said in Part 1, I am using Old Glory Saxons as Piedmontese as there are not are no appropriate figures available; these were purchased from Timecast UK. Old Glory are either loved or hated. My OG Austrians were great to start with but I soon discovered there are other better sculpts. These are obviously from a different sculptor from the Austrians and the details, faces, weapons etc are much better, but some of the walking poses are a little bit strange.

The main issues with the figures are the collars and the packs. Piedmontese had flat collars rather than raised, and I could find little evidence of blanket rolls.

Nonetheless, these painted up really nicely. I still have to add the flags, and although they are designed, I haven't been able to get to the printers. First my boy had chickenpox and now its my wee girl, meaning I won't get to the printers until next week. Rather than wait I wanted to post what I had done so far.

So here they are. They look a little bright, especially the blue, but that must be from the flash of the camera as they look fine in the flesh...

Here's a preview of the flags. They were created in Adobe Illustrator with a bit of shading in Photoshop.

I also found some reference pictures while searching the internet that I wanted to share. These are various Italian re-enactment groups. The one with the flag with the pale blue border is the La Marina Regiment.

According to James R Arnold's Marengo book, the Piedmontese had "Four National and ten Provincial infantry battalions".  I will probably do the other four national battalions, and should probably add grenadier companied to these, but the "provincial" battalions are a little bit of a mystery, so any information would be appreciated.

2nd Heavy Cavalry - Updated with added Plumes

As the French Heavy Cavalry had plumes on their bicornes, and the figures I had used didn't, I decided to add plumes to the next unit I'm painting, which will be the 20th - a regiment that had pink facings and pink and black plumes.

I used a little green stuff, rolled into a carrot shape and carefully added these to the existing figures, and as I was happy with the results I then added plumes to the 2nd.

I think the paint I used is a little thick looking, so it'll need a little more work, but the plumes give these figures an extra "frenchness".

Here is the 2nd Heavy Cavalry with added plumes...

I also printed off a flag for these, but as you can see from the results, it makes sense to use properly printed flags rather than inkjet printed.

And here are the 2nd with the (in progress) 20th at the rear...

Austrian Flags

I found these while looking for pictures of generals. I may try to create some flag artwork using these, once I've finished all the French flags I need for Marengo first.

The last two are particularly interesting, and I wish they were in colour. The first of the bottom two clearly shows the Austrian eagle on the reverse of the flag.