Daniel Maclise: The Waterloo Cartoon, Royal Academy

This September, on the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo, the Royal Academy offers visitors a rare chance to see the remarkable preparatory cartoon for Daniel Maclise's The Meeting of Wellington and Blücher after the Battle of Waterloo, which housed in the Royal Galleries of the House of Lords. The enormous cartoon captures the moment when the two tired leaders met at pub called La Belle Alliance at the centre of the battle.

Daniel Maclise biography

Maclise, who was born in Ireland but spent most of his working life in London, painted the monumental mural commemorating Wellington's triumph from 1858-9 to adorn the newly re-built Houses of Parliament. But what is striking about the Maclise painting is the startling suffering and pain imbedded in the work rather than the glory of battle. Maclise achieved wide-spread renown during the mid-nineteenth century as a history painter and portraitist; in 1865, he was even offered the presidency of the Royal Academy, a post he declined on the grounds of ill health.

Now largely un-known, this exhibition will re-establish Maclise's place as one of the leading British painters of the nineteenth century and is one of the best things to do in London this autumn.