#25 • L'Angélus: 1850's French Painting Reinterpreted As 75mm Trench Art Shell

Part of TRENCH ART & WWI Memorabilia (live auction by Bannerman Auctions)

High bid $250.00

Status: Sold

Category: France

L'Angélus: 1850's French Painting Reinterpreted As 75mm Trench Art Shell French 75mm shell casing is 35cm tall, with exquisitely detailed bold raised relief depiction of (most) of the famed oil painting L'Angélus, completed by Jean-François Millet between 1857 and 1859.  At the time of the Great War, this work hung in the musée du Louvre.  Depicts a French peasant woman praying in a field, with a basket of potatoes and wheelbarrow nearby, and the church tower of Chailly-en-Bière visible in the background.  The 1859 oil painting featured a male character who is conspicuously absent in this trench art version - without doubt an intentional omission; an artistic commentary on the emotional and economic hardship which necessarily results from a generation of young men quite literally removed from the scene by the cataclysm of world war.  Shell has a well-executed floral theme along the base, some white coloring in some of the recessed areas, and is marred only by a large stress fracture which fortunately is dead center on the opposite side of the shell from the vignette.  An important shell.   Estimate: $500 - $700