ENGLISH SCHOOL (EARLY 19TH CENTURY)
Portrait miniature of an Officer in the Royal Staff Corps, wearing red uniform with black facings and silver epaulettes
watercolour on ivory
rectangular black apier maché frame
oval, 78 mm (3 in) high

PROVENANCE:
Sale, Dreweatts, 8 June 2011, lot 133

The Royal Staff Corps was a corps of the British Army which was founded circa 1800 and disbanded in circa 1837. It was generally responsible for short-term military engineering works, with the Royal Engineers and Corps of Royal Sappers and Miners remaining responsible for permanent works, but the boundaries between the functions of the corps were blurred. The Royal Staff Corps answered to the Quartermaster-General instead of to the Board of Ordnance. It also seems to have provided personnel for military police and orderly duties. On its disbandment most of its personnel transferred to the Royal Engineers and the Corps of Royal Sappers and Miners.

This lot is subject to CITES regulations