Cavalry of the Crescent Moon — Print & Oil Painting

Look for the ground and there is none. The lower third of the canvas is a churn of cream and gold impasto with hooves coming out of it, so the riders seem to be surfacing from a wave rather than crossing a plain, and the same paint keeps surging up between the horses to close the gaps.

Five or six riders come on abreast. Two white horses lead at the left with necks stretched and nostrils flared, a chestnut cuts across at the right, and the men wear white turbans and deep green mantles that stream out behind them. Lances lean at different angles across the sky, which is the only cool colour in the picture, a bright unbroken turquoise.

Faces get just enough attention to register as faces: a beard, a cheekbone, a mouth set hard. Past that the artist is uninterested in detail, and harness, robes and manes are all built from the same long buttery strokes.

One thing needs saying plainly: the crescent of the title never appears. No banner carries one and no emblem of any kind is painted here. The crescent became an emblem of Islamic states largely through the Ottomans, several centuries after the crusading period this collection deals with, so its absence is the more accurate outcome.

It belongs to our Knight & Crusade collection. For the same forces in the hour after a battle rather than during one, see the surrender before the red pavilion, and for the opposing cavalry painted with the same knife, the knight on the dark horse.