The Amber Room is the most famous missing artwork in Europe, and Prussia gave it away in exchange for men. Frederick William I presented it to Peter the Great in 1716, sealing a Russo-Prussian alliance against Sweden, and the Tsar's return gift was soldiers chosen for their height. That was how this regiment was assembled. The Emperor in Vienna and the Sultan in Constantinople sent tall men for the same reason — it was an inexpensive way to keep the King of Prussia friendly. Others were recruited at high pay, and others were simply taken; not everyone came willingly, and among the forced recruits there were desertions and suicides. The king drilled the regiment himself every day, painted their portraits from memory, paraded them for every visiting dignitary, and when he was ill had them march past his sickbed. He went further and tried to marry tall men to tall women in the hope of breeding more, a scheme Darwin was still citing a century later as "the well-known case of the Prussian grenadiers." At his death in 1740 there were 3,200 of them, the entry standard six Prussian feet — about 1.88 m — and the tallest on the books was an Irishman, James Kirkland, reported at 2.17 m. In twenty-seven years they never fought a battle. The usual verdict is that the Soldier King was a crank with a ruinously expensive hobby, and the expense is not in dispute; but the hobby was also doing a job. The giants were currency, spent on alliances rather than on ground, while the ordinary regiments drilled alongside them became the army his son used to take Silesia seven months after inheriting it.

Eight figures: an officer, an NCO, a drummer and five grenadiers. The officer is unmistakable in a tricorn and a dark blue coat heavy with gold buttonhole lace, one hand on his hip; the NCO carries a halberd on a yellow shaft with a silver star head; the drummer wears a laced red coat with a brass-hooped drum slung at his knee. The five grenadiers wear the uniform exactly as the record describes it — red mitre cap with a crowned star plate, Prussian blue coat with gold lacing, scarlet breeches, white gaiters, muskets shouldered — and one cap is tufted white rather than yellow, marking him out of the rank. The detail worth knowing is that this uniform "was not in any way unique for the time." Every element of it was ordinary issue. The only extraordinary thing about the regiment was the men inside the clothes, which is exactly why eight of them standing together says something a single figure cannot. As a diorama they work best drawn up in line facing the officer, parade order rather than action. For an opposite number in the same scale, British Grenadiers (Seven Years War) carry the same mitre-cap tradition into a different army — and since Britain and Prussia were allies in that war, the two sets make a joint review rather than a fight. The Fifes and Drum of the Prussian Line Infantry 1914 is the same army's music two centuries on. And the son who inherited these grenadiers and thought them a waste of money is the king who handed Bach a fugue subject at Potsdam on 7 May 1747 — he appears on the page for The Composers.

Model: PG1 / Tradition of London / 54mm (1/32) scale / 8 figure set

All hand painted Toy Soldier sets packed in the Classic Tradition Red Boxes. All Toy Soldiers cast in quality white metal, and individually hand painted in gloss enamels.

Please allow 2-3 weeks delivery.