As a young man, after being educated at Eton College and then going to Cambridge for a year, Prince Henry followed the traditional royal pattern of attending Sandhurst and then spent two years in the King’s Royal Rifle Corps.
Unlike his brothers who joined the Royal Navy, he became a lieutenant in the 10th Royal Hussars in 1921 after which the regiment never ceased to be an important part of his life.
While his ambition to command the regiment never materialised (his military career was interrupted by royal responsibilities following the 1936 abdication of his brother Edward VIII), he retained a lifelong affinity with the Hussars.
It is not known when he started to collect engravings relating to the regiment but it seems likely that it was from a relatively early point in his life.
The Bellmans sale included a mounted portrait of Henry F Bonham, colonel of the 10th Royal Hussars in 1846, by an unknown 19th century English artist. While most of the lots relating to the regiment were prints, this was a 15½ x 21in (40 x 53cm) oil on canvas and it duly topped the Hussars pictures, selling at £2300 via thesaleroom.com against a £400-600 estimate.
Also bringing strong competition was a striking watercolour and bodycolour by an unknown 19th century artist depicting a splendidly attired horseman. Beneath the image it was inscribed Robert Frost, 10th Royal Hussars (Prince of Wales’s Own). Estimated at £150-250, it took £1500.
Uppermost among the 10 works depicting the regiment by Belgian artist Orlando Norie (1832-1901) was a watercolour titled Autumn Manoeuvres at Aldershot under Lieut.-Col. V. Baker, encamped on Cove Common, August 1871. Measuring 16¾in x 2ft (43 x 70cm), it was relatively large and overshot a £300-500 estimate, selling online at £1050.
