Portraits of other ranks of the infantry in this period are rare, so this naive watercolour is of great value. The man’s coat is fastened to the neck but there is no sign of buttons. The button-hole lace is placed in pairs, plain white, without the regimental blue line pattern of the rank-and-file, which indicates that he is a sergeant. However, infantry sergeants at this time were distinguished by a waist-sash, not completely crimson like the officers but with a yellow stripe along the middle, for regiments with yellow facings.
The coat is single breasted and has large white shoulder wings indicating that he is in a flank company, either grenadier or light company. The collar and shoulder straps are edged with white but the cuffs are plain with lines that are probably twists of yellow thread. The coat is long-waisted with a short coat-tail similar to the Private’s coat of the 9th Foot. The facing colour of the 10th was described as bright yellow but almost all portraits show collars and cuffs as dull yellow.
The shako is the stove-pipe pattern, worn during the first decade of the 19th century, with a large universal pattern brass plate on the front. There is a large green plume on top and green tasselled cords around the shako. A green plume was, for many years, the method of recognising light infantry. Grenadier companies had a white plume and battalion companies a white over red plume. The white breeches and black buttoned-up gaiters are well shown in this portrait.
The 10th Regiment was posted in various stations around the Mediterranean between 1801 and 1812. This painting could have been made while they were in Sicily c1810. The image is taken from the Brown Digital Repository.
