Drawings of the Western Front.

Landscape format watercolour album, 24 x 16 cm, with pen and ink titling design "Album des Dessins" on front cover. c. 60 leaves, the first 23 with mounted pen and ink drawings, captioned and with trompe l'oeil framing rules. [Vaubecourt,

A vigorous and primitive album, with the pencil note on the front endpaper, presumably by its author, "A. Gaillard ... commencé le 20 décembre 1916." It appears to have been used throughout the war, as the last entry represents a bloodthirsty collaboration of French and American soldiers at the Battle of Thierry. The majority of the drawings relate to Vaubecourt, on the Meuse, with before and after drawings, particularly of the ruined church, but other neighbouring villages such as Louppy-le-Petit and Sermaize. There's no indication that Gaillard was a participant and it is likely that he or she was a local resident. Among pictures of ruined architecture we have a "groupe de prisonniers subissant une interrogation", a crashed zeppelin and a crashed German plane, and a version of the mythical "L'enfant au fusil de Bois", when the Germans were supposed to have executed a child by firing squad for having a wooden gun.

Stock Code: 216914