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Lot description
Gaston Balande, French 1880-1970 - La descente du Cabaret-Rouge, Souville, 1917; oil on canvas, signed, indistinctly inscribed and dated lower right 'mai 1917 / G. Balande', 46.2 x 55.3 cm (unframed) (ARR) (Import VAT Charged on the Hammer Price) Provenance: a Private Collection of French Naturalist Painters Note: Painted at the height of the First World War, is a rare and emotionally charged work by Gaston Balande, one of France’s foremost Naturalist painters. Commissioned as an official war artist in 1917, Balande was sent to the front lines at Nieuport and Verdun to record the devastation of the battlefield — this painting stands as one of the most profound and human responses to the conflict from the period. Fort Souville was a 19th century fortification and major site of the Battle of Verdun. Unlike many propagandistic depictions of war, Balande’s composition is intimate and restrained. The solemn procession of soldiers against the devastated landscape is rendered quietly and with empathy, underscoring the scale of the devastation without resorted to exaggeration.