This Thursday, the philatelic club of Braine-l’Alleud and Bpost presented a sheet of 5 stamps commemorating the Waterloo battle bicentenary and which will be sold from June 1st. The stamps show portraits of the main protagonists of the battle, the duke of Wellington, Blucher, the prince of Orange, Marshal Ney, and Napoleon. In the background appears “French cavalry charging English formation” (1875), a Victoria and Albert museum painting by Felix Philippoteaux. The philatelic club of Braine-l’Alleud also secured a special postmark, to be used from 10:00am to 4:00pm during the 3 days of the official Waterloo bicentenary commemoration, at a temporary post office set up in the visitors’ centre in Hameau du Lion. In fact there are 3 different postmarks, one per day, for June 18th, 19th, and 20th.
These unique postmarks, one of which replicates the emperor’s signature, will later be destroyed. To design the 5 stamps making up the bicentenary sheet, Bpost employed the Belgian engraver Guillaume Brouxand four foreign artists: Jiang Weijie (China), Wolfgang Mauer (Germany), Elsa Catelin (France) et Matin Mörck (Sweden).
(Source: Belga)
