From humble beginnings, Vauban rose to become one of the greatest military engineers, renowned as much for his skill at designing fortifications as for his ability to undermine those of his enemies. In this retrospective portrait, Coysevox records the scar left on the Marshal’s cheek by a shooting accident (a ‘flash in the pan’) in his youth. He is wearing the ribbon of the Order of the Holy Ghost over a suit of armour and, on his left side, a lappet carved with crossed marshal's batons and laurel and oak branches