Eighteenth-century European armies maintained the iconic white cross-belts and waistcoats of their infantry with pipe clay — a soft white clay mined in deposits across England and the Continent, ground into a powder, mixed with water, and applied as a wash to white leather and textile. The pipe-clayed look was the visual signature of disciplined infantry from the mid-eighteenth century into the Napoleonic period. Soldiers spent hours of the eighteenth-century military day keeping their belts pipe-clayed, their muskets oiled, their brass polished, and their cartridge boxes — the gibernes — clean and squared away. A French infantryman's giberne held thirty to thirty-two paper cartridges in a wooden block drilled with vertical holes, with a tin tray underneath for additional rounds or kit. The whole rig hung on a buff leather strap that crossed the chest and was kept whitened with the same pipe clay. The figure shown here, in the moment of reaching across his body for the next cartridge, would have been spending much of his off-duty time maintaining what we see him wearing.

This figure shows a Royal Deux-Ponts private in the moment of reaching for his next cartridge — musket held horizontally across his body, ready for the next round to be brought up and bitten open. His giberne is visible on his right hip on its buff leather strap. He wears the standard regimental uniform: blue coat with yellow facings, white cross-belts and waistcoat, white breeches and gaiters, the bicorne hat with green plume. He pairs with the British 43rd Foot Handle Cartridge (the same loading step in the opposing army), [the Royal Deux-Ponts officer (Captain von Closen), and the Royal Deux-Ponts Chasseur sergeant — together composing the French regimental loading line with its NCO and officer leadership.

1/30 scale (60mm), matte-painted, single figure boxed. Catalog number 16184. As with the rest of the W. Britain modern range, the painting is photographic-quality detail intended to read well in dioramas and display cases.