Waterloo Campaign: Quatre Bras to Waterloo Waterloo Campaign: Quatre Bras to Waterloo After the fighting at Quatre Bras (16 June 1815) the two opposing commanders Marshal Ney and the Duke of Wellington initially held their ground while they obtained information about what had happened at the larger Battle of Ligny. They received intelligence that the Prussian army under the command of Prince Blücher had been defeated by the French Army of the North under the command of Napoleon Bonaparte. Upon receiving this news Wellington organised the retreat of the Anglo-allied army to a place he had identified a year before as the best place in Belgium
The Meeting of Wellington and Blücher after the Battle of Waterloo it was displayed in 1859. Maclise died in 1870, and the cartoon was acquired by the Royal Academy the same year. It was displayed at Burlington House until the 1920s. After 40 years in store, the "Waterloo Cartoon" was conserved and put on display at Royal Armouries in Leeds and the Royal Academy for the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo in 2015. Maclise started work on the painting in January 1860, and completed it during the winter of 1861. It was initially intended to be a fresco, with paint applied to wet plaster, but the work was completed