Debout! Nos morts pour la patrie … voici la France!
Paris: Jean Cussac Imprimeur, 1914. Small landscape-format lithographic poster printed on cream-coloured paper. Print area is 49.5 cm x 35 cm. Total size of poster, including text and boarder, is 56 cm x 45 cm. Edges slightly worn, top right-hand corner of horizontal edge has creases and a small tear, faint vertical fold down centre; otherwise a near-fine print with clear and clean colour. Created by artist Lucien Jonas (1880-1947), this poignant image depicts three children looking towards graves and ghosts of the war dead. The title of this artwork translates as: "Arise! Our dead for the nation … here is France." The text below the image translates as follows: "Under the Revolution and the Empire: 62 Generals from Alsace or Lorraine served France. Today: 171 Generals and more than 20,000 soldiers from Alsace or Lorraine fight for France! We read in History: Alsace followed all our destinies; she lived from our life. All that we thought, she thought it too; all that we felt, she felt it too. She shared our victories, our defeats, our glory, all our joys, all our sufferings. She shares all our hopes."
It was images such as this one that led Lucien to be appointed as the "Military Painter attached to the Army Museum" in 1915. During his time with the Museum, he travelled the front, from Belgium to the Vosges, painting what he saw, as well as executing portraits of military leaders. He created close to 800 oils and 4000 drawings, many of which were reproduced by French journals such as L'Illustration, as well as in the Allied newspapers. In 1916, he was named official painter of the French Navy, and later went on to a have a diverse career in art. Item #5033
Price (AUD): $150.00