Gouache on paper, 3.75 x 2.25 in. (sight), matted to 6.75 x 5.625 in. Initialed on reverse, "A.R.W." with title in pencil below image, "Our center on the eve of the 13th," possibly in reference to the Battle of Fredericksburg, fought December 11-15, 1862.

Noted battlefield artist Alfred R. Waud (1828-1891) was born and raised in London, where he attended the Government School of Design at Somerset House before immigrating to the United States in 1850. Upon his arrival, Waud worked primarily as a freelance artist until May of 1861 when he was retained as a sketch artist and special correspondent by the New York Illustrated Newspaper to report on the war. At the close of 1861, Waud joined Harper's Weekly, where he was employed through the end of the war. He continued to work for Harper's Weekly in addition to a number of other publishers following the war and his career flourished. While touring battlefields in the South in 1891, Waud died in Marietta, GA. The Library of Congress houses most of his original wartime sketches, with some remaining in private hands.