This image is a detail from a painting of officers and men of the 25th Regiment in Minorca, where the regiment was stationed from 1769 to 1775. The officer on the left is from the Grenadier Company and therefore wears a fur cap and carries a musket. The other officer belonged to a battalion company and wears a coat that follows the regimental pattern laid down at some point in the 1750s or 1760s. The Grenadier’s coat is the pattern described in the Clothing Warrant of 1768. The collar is of the turn-down style and the cuffs are simply round, with three gold lace buttonhole loops and gilt buttons.
The older style coat worn by the officer on the right dates from around 1760 and has distinctive red slash flaps laid over yellow round cuffs. Both the slash flap and the cuff are edged with gold lace. The lapels are also edged with gold lace and have evenly spaced gold-laced buttonhole loops and gilt buttons along their length. The top of the lapels extends up to the shoulders.
Both officers wear white waistcoats, which were authorised in 1768 to replace red waistcoats. Their swords are slung from concealed waist-belts. The pockets on the waistcoat follow the style of the pockets on the skirt of the coat, with gilt buttons below the flap. There is a difference in the way the crimson silk sash is worn. The battalion company officer wears his in the older style, over the right shoulder, while the Grenadier has his sash around the waist, under his coat. This difference continued for a short time after the changes of 1768, but by about 1771 officers of all companies were wearing the sash around the waist.
The tricorn hat is black with gold lace along the edge and a black cockade. The fashion was for the front point of the hat to be worn over the left eye, and for the hat to develop more defined points on either side. By the end of the century this style had evolved into the bicorn hat. Officers on duty wore a gilt gorget near the throat, suspended on a yellow ribbon, and also wore black boots with brown tops.
