The Field of Waterloo The Field of Waterloo The Field of Waterloo is a poem by Sir Walter Scott, written and published in 1815. After the allied victory at the battle of Waterloo on 18 June 1815, Scott travelled to Belgium in August, and was one of the first British civilians to visit the battlefield. Scott was hoping to recover his expenses by publishing an account of his travels (in the form of imaginary letters), published as "Paul's Letters to His Kinsfolk" (1816). The profits from Scott's poem about the battle were intended to go to a fund for widows and orphans of soldiers.
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