Colonel Brunet (1778-1866)
The officer of the 24th Chasseurs mini got a couple of modelling-putty fringed epaulettes and a bearskin colpack. With the casting’s plume positioned for its shako, a little creative licence was necessary in shaping a bell-shaped colpack. Twin silver fringed-epaulettes made my officer a colonel. As colonel of the 24th in 1809 at Aspern-Essling he was Vivant Jean Brunet-Denon. A former aide-de- camp to Murat, Brunet had been colonel of the regiment since 1807. He was 31 at the battle. We know he was present on the day because he had his right arm shot away and had to suffer amputation (the arm so pro- minent in the mini). He was replaced as colonel and did not lead the regiment at Wagram but continued to be employed and was a Bonapartist candidate for election in the 1850s. I used only some of the distinctions of the Otto painting’s junior officer for my colonel. One detail I copied was the brass chinstraps rather than the more usual silver ones. The facing colour in the painting seemed redder in the officer painting than in the other Otto paintings. For the 24th‘s distinctive colour of capucine I went with Rousselot’s interpretation of the colour. Capucine is an orange flower known in English as nasturtium. Like the flower, colour references of capucine vary from outright orange to a very red orange. I mixed Foundry’s Orange 3B with Foundry’s British Red Coat 68B, using Foundry’s Scarlet Shade 38A as a base coat.
BELOW LEFT Rousselot’s
capucine colour swatch. BELOW RIGHT Photo taken in
France of a capucine (nasturtium) flower ©JLPC.
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