King William IVth Portrait of Col. Charles Webb Dance, Capt.of 23rd Light Dragoons at Waterloo

Col. Charles Dance RH. After William Salter, portrait artist for the 'Waterloo Banquet', painted in 1836. The original of Col Dance was commissioned as a portrait study for the great banquet portrait.
Captain Dance, as he was in 1815, was an officer of the 23rd Light Dragoons Regiment which was formed in 1794, and disbanded in 1817.

Capt. Dance was the son of a well-known artist. He was born in 1785, and died in London in 1844. He married Elizabeth Scott Evans in 1805, but divorced her in 1812 and married Isabella Cooper in 1816.

In 1821 he was knighted as a Colonel, and in 1836 became a Knight of the Royal Hanoverian Guelphic Order, a personal award of the Sovereign.

He was a career soldier, serving in 7 regiments in all! These varied from 2nd West Indian Regiment, to 2nd Life Guards, via 10th Light Dragoons, West Middlesex Militia, 84th Regiment and the Royal Yorkshire Rangers.

At Waterloo he served with 23rd Light Dragoons. He lived up to his name and danced with death on a number of occasions. In 1809 he fought a duel with a Lieutenant in the 23rd Dragoons and they each fired 7 shots, with Dance finally hitting his opponent in the groin and winning. In 1811 at Talavera in Portugal his horse was killed underneath him and a musket ball went through his helmet - but missed him. Finally at Waterloo he was wounded. The portraits NPG 3689-NPG 3769 are oil studies for a famed large picture (about 6ft x 11ft), 'The Waterloo Banquet', now hanging at Stratfield Saye House. Wellington's country residence. The banquet was held regularly at Apsley House on the anniversary of Waterloo, 18 June 1815, William Salter's picture representing the occasion in 1836, though it may have been conceived earlier. Two of the sitters, Bathurst and Manners, died in 1834 and 1835 and their portraits appear to have been painted from life, but the only banquet when both William IV and William II of Holland were present was in 1836 (The Times, 20 June 1836, 4e). The finished work, far more meticulously painted than the rather rough oil studies, was completed in 1840 and exhibited in June 1841 at 20 Threadneedle Street, the offices of Alderman Moon who published Greatbach's engraving of the picture. Neither Moon nor Salter were able to find a buyer for the picture until it was bought in 1852 by a friend of Salter's, Edward Mackenzie, who had just acquired a large house in the country, Fawley Court, Henley-on-Thames. It hung there until bequeathed to the 6th Duke of Wellington by his grandson Major W. R. D. Mackenzie.
"According to what I have been told by my Father and my Grandfather, Salter certainly painted two sets of these portraits; I do not know who commissioned one set, but have an idea that Salter tried to sell them to the subjects. Also according to family tradition, Salter who was a friend of my great-grandfather, tried unsuccessfully to sell the Banquet picture and another set of portraits, and these were finally bought by my great-grandfather out of friendship to Salter, and possibly because he had just acquired a house large enough to house them.
(Letter of 3 July 1952 from Alexander Mackenzie of Inverness in NPG archive.)


We have had this painting sympathetically restored, relined, cleaned and a side split repaired by the conservator of paintings to the Royal Palace, the Royal Pavillion, Mr Stig Evans MA. We show in the image gallery the 1809 guidon of the 23rd Light Dragoon's now in the National Army Museum. We also have an original personal invitation to General Bourchier from Field Marshall Wellington for the Waterloo Dinner at Apsley House see item number 19367, this would make a superb accompanyment

Code: 23667