George Jones was an all-rounder: a serving officer in the Peninsular War; an active member of the Royal Academy; a friend and biographer of Sir Francis Chantrey (1781-1841) and J M W Turner (1775-1851) as well as an artist in his own right. In 1817 he published an illustrated account of the Battle of Waterloo, which earned him the nickname ‘Waterloo Jones’. He specialised in battle scenes at a time when spectacular panoramas were the rage in London – Henry Aston Barker (1774-1856) exhibited the battles of Vittoria and Waterloo at Leicester Square Panorama Theatre in 1814 and 1816 respectively. His largest depiction of the Battle of Waterloo (now at the Royal Hospital Chelsea) was exhibited at the British Institution in 1820 and won him a 500 guineas prize. These two battles scenes (RCIN 407186 and 407187) were commissioned by George IV in 1822 and were hanging in the Throne Room at St James’s Palace by 1824 and remain there to this day. On the open, gently undulating plain the battle rages; the Duke of Wellington is mounted on Copenhagen in the right foreground, pointing to the centre distance; cavalry advance from the left. Napoleon can be seen in the distance on the sunken road, urging on his Imperial Guard. Jones worked on this painting at the same time that his friend Turner was painting the Battle of Trafalgar; he seems to be imitating Turner's device of treating large numbers of people as swirling masses of light and shade.