This portrait shows the dress uniform of a youthful officer of the Bengal Light Cavalry. It may have been painted before he joined the regiment, as the uniform is incomplete. There should be a waist-girdle of gold lace and crimson silk. Later uniforms were worn with a hussar-style barrel sash of crimson cord and gilt barrels. The portrait is of an unnamed officer in an unnamed regiment but the orange facings place it as Bengal Light Cavalry, and it is one of the ten regiments apart from the 6th which had black facings. The heavily embroidered jacket has the distinctive Indian-style wavy braiding across the chest. The style of braid differs from the earlier 1815 portrait in that the lines do not slope up and over the shoulders. The horizontal braid nearest the collar terminates there, not at a button. His pouch-belt is prevented from slipping off the shoulder because of a twisted silver cord that buttons near the neck. The front of the jacket fastens with hooks and eyes exposing an orange edge. The high Prussian collar is fastened over a black stock with no sign of shirt collar points.
There is no lace on the collar or cuff, only lines of silver braid with elaborate figuring. The amount of decoration did not increase with rank as with some uniforms; this junior officer, either a cornet or a lieutenant, has a similar amount of braid as a colonel. The red Morocco leather belts follow a pattern of silver train lace with central orange stripes and orange edges. The waist-belt supports his sword and has three slings to support the sabretache. It is unfortunate that the sabretache is not visible to enable us to identify the regiment. Also the shako in his right hand does not reveal his unit as the huge white cock’s feather plume hides the shako plate. But we can see that the plate is the Maltese cross pattern that was adopted by the regiments in 1835. The gold cap-lines have a plaited festoon on the front of the cap, covering the peak. When the shako is worn, the lines fall down the back, come under his right arm and hook up to the jacket so that the flounders and tassels that we can see are displayed on his front.
