A Delight to the Eye.

  

While struggling with a bad back I returned to reading Model Soldiers for the Connoisseur by John Garrett 1972 recently. It is a book I purchased a few years ago on the recommendation of Harry Pearson.

 Basically the book contained potted histories of sculptors, collectors and people involved in model soldiers. Contained in the book amongst the potted biograpies of various rich Europeans are mentions of wargamers who would make their names in the hobby.

 Interestingly the name Peter Gilder pops up several times and I thought in the interests of completeness I should include what was written about Peter and his collection;

Peter Gilder believes that beautifully painted models need an appropriate setting.He is especially skilful in making naturalistic terrains and  employs many types of house of the period appropriate to the campaign in progress. His collection,comprising over 3,000 Stadden, Gammage [Russell] and Hinton models, all of the Napoleonic period, is delightfully painted and serves not only its primary purpose but at the same time is a delight to the eye. 

The question I keep asking myself is what happened to this specific collection? Stadden was just making his reputation in the late 1960's and early 1970's but his horses were already beautiful sculpts and I cant remember ever seeing figures owned by Peter that were obviously Stadden ones.