2-969-950 - /Heritage Images

"From Our Own Correspondent" - painted by W. Hemsley, 1856. Engraving of a painting in the Exhibition at the British Institution, '...suggested by the Crimean news, and by the far-famed "Chelsea Pensioners" of Wilkie, now at Apsley House. An old Peninsular veteran is seen eagerly listening (in spite of his deafness) to the thrilling news which is read to him of the battles of Inkerman and Balaclava. It is by Mr. W . Hemsley, and exhibits in very happy union the contrasts of age and youth. The veteran is evidently thinking, at the same time, of other battles in which he had his part, and seems secretly, with all his admiration for what he hears, to prefer some of his own hairbreadth escapes to those thrilling ones which he is hearing read to him. The accessories throughout are painstakingly rendered'. From "Illustrated London News", 1856.