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£1,900  £950

Presentation: Framed
Signed J A Braine (in painting over fireplace)
Gouache and pen and ink over pencil
Four panels, two 9x12ins (23x30.5cms), other two 9x17ins (23x43.2cms)

Each in a white gesso stepped frame

This decorative scheme is likely to be the work of a professional French decorator rather than a painter. It  is likely to have been for the private study of a retired military gent (the Ecole Militaire with tricolor in Paris is depicted and what is clearly a war memorial - recording perhaps his father who fell in the Great War ) of ample means (the chateau with the wrought-iron gates perhaps the family seat, with antique family carriages in the écuries - one is shown) who owned racehorses.  Many such chateau are found in the Aisne region in the horse country north of Paris (Chantilly etc).  The room is 1930s in style with its Art Deco pilasters, but is likely to date to the post war era  judging by the dress of the women and what looks like a 50s grandstand behind.

We are grateful to Michael Barker for assistance.

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Presentation: Framed
Gouache, on watermarked Lana Docelles France paper
24 x 19 in. (61 x 48.3)

In a period limed oak step-section frame with pastel green knull

Some surface direct; small tear at top edge

We are grateful to Michael Barker for assistance.

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Presentation: Framed
Signed indistinctly, dated ‘10th February 1915’ and inscribed with title
Pencil with white highlights on brown paper ; 9-3/4 × 12-3/4 in. (24.7 × 32.4 cm)
This drawing depicts a German P .O.W. camp for French officers, with their
names marked on the bedheads. It is interesting to note that certain luxuries,
including bottles of wine, have been accorded to the French prisoners; such
privileges would have been less likely as the war progressed.

A German soldier , visiting Zossen P .O.W. camp in 1915, described the French prisoners as being of ‘every sort of training and temperament, swept here like dust by the war into common anonymity.We saw Frenchmen sorting mail in the post-office, painting signs for streets, making blankets out of pasted-together newspapers – everywhere they were treated as intelligent men to whom favors could be granted. And, of course, there was this difference between the French and English of the early weeks of the war – the French army is one of universal conscription like the German, and business men and farmers, writers, singers, and painters were lumped in together. ’ (Extract taken from Des Deutschen Volkes Kriegstagebuch, On Visiting Zossen POW Camp, 1915).

The Germans held 2.5 million prisoners during the Great War .