Morier was a Swiss military and sporting painter who started working for William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland (1721-65) in 1747, when he painted a series of pictures of troops under his command. From 1752 until 1764 he was employed as ‘limner’ (painter) to the Duke on an annual salary of £100; his name also appears regularly in royal accounts from 1764 to 1767. Five soldiers, full-length, resting on an embankment in a landscape; on the left, a drummer is seated with his drum beside him; in the foreground, a soldier holds a pitcher; another lies smoking at the top of the slope.