Description of the field of battle, and disposition of the troops engaged in the action, fought on the 18th of June, 1815, near Waterloo: illustrative of the representation of that great event, in the Panorama, Leicester-Square
[London]: J. Adlard, printer, 1816
Pam.6.81.23(1), folding plate opposite title page

The panorama, a circular structure housing a 360-degree painted scene lit from an obscured source above it and viewed from a platform reached from beneath, was patented by Robert Barker in 1787. His business was taken over by his son Henry Aston Barker (1774–1856), whose outstandingly successful Waterloo panorama brought in £10,000 at a shilling per view. The battle was represented at the point of the Allied advance in the evening, but with a ‘liberty’ taken to allow the simultaneous portrayal of Ponsonby’s cavalry charge on d’Erlon’s corps earlier in the day. The phenomenon of the panorama eventually ceded place to more modern entertainments, but an example which opened on the battlefield itself in 1912 can still be visited.