Nederlandsche Armée, Kurassier 1823 - 1827

Jean-Baptiste Madou created this print of a Dutch cuirassier, a type of cavalry soldier, sometime in the first half of the 19th century. It is likely that this lithograph was made in Brussels after the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo. At that time the Netherlands and Belgium were joined as one kingdom, and the army reflected this union. Madou would become one of Belgium’s foremost lithographers, creating images that served the project of nation building after Belgium separated from the Netherlands in 1830. We can ask what it meant to portray military subjects at this time. Was it an attempt to instill patriotic feelings, or did it perpetuate class divisions? To answer these questions we can look at the history of the Belgian state and the development of its institutions.