Very ugly scenery in a Prussian village

 

Oh, what a terrible scenery in this Prussian village, where Russian marauders are plundering and harassing the young women behind Prussian lines!! Fortunately, a small unit of Prussian Jaegers with an elegant officer are approaching to rescue them....  The Prussian officer is quite elegant (Trident FIW range) and by origin a French (this explains his elegance..). He has no mercy..
The figures are mixed of Matthias-Maske, Trident and El Viejo Dragon.
Sorry for the x-rated pictures...

The "Teufelsmauer"

Teufelsmauer as model....

This post shows just a short intermezzo between painting amounts of cavalry horses and troopers for Saxony... Changing the scale of brushes, cuts and dimensions, I decided to build some terrain elements for the tabletop. First piece is the impressing "Teufelsmauer", the "Devil´s wall", which exists in reality. It is simply a geological fault, but in middle-age, Germans believed in satanic work - only he could build such strange formation in the flat landscape of Saxony-Anhalt. The wall is near Quedlinburg and it´s quite sure, that at least the Prussians passed this area.
The silhouette is also an often used background for medieval horror movies like "Black Death", if somebody knows it.
Our Teufelsmauer is now 1 meter long and r.a. 40cm wide, so it will be a monumental obstacle in wargames; difficult to transverse and long-during to surround!

... and in reality. source: http://www.geodienst.de/harz.htm

The "mouth" of the Teufelsmauer. Build in rigid foam, the painting does the rest...

Good obstacle on the tabletop

First test with Prussian Jaegers

The location of this strange phenomenon. Source: http://www.ausflugsziele-harz.de/ausflugsziele-sehenswertes/wandern-biken/teufelsmauer-stieg.htm

A wonderful picture of Friedrich Maier. See his blog: http://friedrichmaier.de/?p=17004

Les Baigneuses of the 18. century

Today I present you a quite famous and oftenly found motive of the contemporary art of the 18. and 19. century: the motive of bathing women or nymphs. The idea is founded on the intention to built a normal pond, how we can find such in every Prussian and Silesian village of the 18. century
 - till today.

See this postcards I found by combing through Polish and German sites about East-Prussia:

Lake Schwentainen, Masuria, Poland;
source: Doliwa-Naturfoto.de

source: Doliwa-Naturfoto.de

pond in Mensguth Dorf, Ortelsburg district, former Prussia
source: www.Bildarchiv-Ostpreussen.de

But the object seemed to be too boring to be placed simply on the tabletop as a decorative element between the rural buildings around our battles. Having irregular troops like Cossacks and Prussian hussars and Jaegers, it could be a piquant detail to add some nude girls, having a bath in the pond.
If the Cossacks will harass them or the Prussians will defend them by time, we will see later.

This motive is also a theme in the classical art - nearly every painter used the motive of bathing nymphs in his work - it gives me also the excuse to be in a good society...  I risk to be spammed in google by showing naked bodies, but I hope, you will put your intellectual glasses on and interpretate my post as a contribution to an all-embracing knowledge of the life of the 18. century...
Thank you, gentlemen.

The figures are some of S+D 1/43 miniatures from UK, the ladies free of of clothes from the Spanish manufacturer El Viejo Dragon - a rare and excellent range of Roman Bath scenes. I gave them a pale skin and lighter, fair hair to match better in the Prussian-Polish context. That´s all. I forgot: It was also a nice occasion to experiment with the artificial water effect from NOCH, a sort of guck with a lot of options in modelling.

A nice couple of S+D Miniatures: girl pets a dachshund

Paul Cézanne: les baigneuses

Pierre Auguste Renoir, Baigneuses

Pierre Auguste Renoir, Baigneuses 2

Thanks to abdul666, who wrote me such a kind comment with this image linked, I put that here - it matches well with the theme. ..
source: http://p.joux.graphiste.free.fr/Histoire%20Web/18emeWeb/img18m/rgtBigorre.jpg

Country guest house late summer 1756

On the eve of the Prussian invasion to Saxony, in august 1756, which ended so unhappily at the siege of Pirna for the Saxon army, we find this little scene in northern Lusatia (Lausitz): a country guest house, which shows us a moment of idyllic atmosphere - or better, typical atmosphere... As we can see, there is already an ugly fight in full swing. A young adolescent, having tried the Saxon Schwarzbier, could not do with it - he provoques the other guests with abusing words and has to be calmed down by a Prussian officer of the Freikorps "Le Noble".

The young rowdy looks a little bit like the young Klaus Kinski..

Officer of the Freikorps "Le Noble" - wearing the most beautiful uniform of the Prussian army, in my opinion.

Klaus Kinski provokes the officer and stands ready for a duel - we hope, the officer will succeed calming him down or giving him a good pounding..

The set I built is a new addition to the tabletop and should decorate the battles as a backdrop. The building has the typical 18th century rural architecture style. The them of a guest house is to be found in the famous scene of Frederick the Great after the battle of Leuthen, stopping for a bite to eat at the Gasthof Saara in Deutsch-Lissa. The innkeeper did not recognize him.

The famous inn, Saara bei Deutsch Lissa on an old postcard.

The miniatures are of different manufacturers: Trident (man with pipe and officer), Eureka (3 Musketeers) and Sash-and-Saber (AWI civilians). The building is made with styrofoam and cardboard.

Madame Bonnacieux with her husband in the background - We imagine, they are huguenots settling in Prussia - this explains the baguette and the bottle of red wine on the table....

The maidservant in the ambulatory

This maidservant brings beer and wine.

A Sash-and-Saber farmer with a Frontrank head

Front view of the guest house.

The entrance to the "Etablissement": The font of "Etablissement" should be the original typography of this period. It is called "Blankenburg" and is available for download as a free font.