Thursday 9 April 2009

Louis XIV's paper armies

I've always been a little interested in paper soldiers. They predated flats in the history of such things and according to some histories Louis XIV had one of the first collections, employing the artists of the day to hand colour them. Does anybody out there know anything about these and are they still in existence somewhere? I'd love to know.
Until then we'll have to make do with the Junior General's League of Augsberg.

3 comments:

Steve-the-Wargamer said...

..slightly later than your period of interest, but these are an interesting modern day slant that I saw at this years Salute..

http://www.walkerloo.com/

Corporal_Trim said...

I like them too, Ralphus. If you don't have the book "Paper Soldiers" by Edward Ryan, I recommend it. Rather pricey but beautiful.

As for paper soldiers themselves, Mignot still sells a few traditional sets. Nothing in the way of soldiers for our era unfortunately, but the Louis XIV Versailles sheet is quite nice:

http://www.cbgmignot.com/sheet-versailles-sous-louis-xiv_p1629.html

Steve

Mike Siggins said...

Hi

Just been catching up with the blog. I wondered if you knew about the paper armies from Billy Bones? They are ECW, so a bit early for your interests perhaps, but a superb set of images.

http://billybonesworkshop.co.uk/

Mike