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La Cubitière

Print
2002 (made)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

In 2002 Australian artist Raymond Arnold made a suite of eight etchings in response to a painting he saw in the Louvre of Henri IV of France in full armour. The series was also inspired by a trip to First World War graves in France, where his grandfather and many other young Australian men died in action.

In each print Arnold depicts one of the component parts from a suit of armour against a ground of synthetic lace. The armour is overlaid with a traditional Provencal textile design that goes back centuries but is still found on today’s French market stalls. The sense of both strength and vulnerability evoked by the armour plays against the associations of the lace and the traditional pattern: delicacy but ‘cheapness’, implicit expendability and working-class origins. The images bring together a variety of themes including war, violence, the fragility of the male body, the use of young working-class men as gun fodder in the war, and collective memory.


Object details

Categories
Object type
TitleLa Cubitière (assigned by artist)
Materials and techniques
Soft-ground etching on paper
Brief description
Soft ground etching 'Henri IV- la Cubitière' by Raymond Arnold, France, 2002.
Physical description
Etching in black and translucent yellow with image of the cubitière or arm covering from a suit of armour, patterned with oval, star-like shapes, seen against a ground of lace- the pattern of the latter created through soft ground printing from a piece of machine-made synthetic lace of the type used to make domestic lace curtains. The print has the same width as the paper but there are margins at top and bottom.
Dimensions
  • Plate height: 69.5cm
  • Plate width: 63cm
  • Sheet height: 92cm
  • Sheet width: 63cm
Production typeLimited edition
Copy number
5/15
Marks and inscriptions
Raymond A [The A circled ] 2002 / Henri IV - La Cubitière / 5/15 (Signature; date; title; edition number)
Credit line
Purchased through the Julie and Robert Breckman Print Fund
Subjects depicted
Places depicted
Summary
In 2002 Australian artist Raymond Arnold made a suite of eight etchings in response to a painting he saw in the Louvre of Henri IV of France in full armour. The series was also inspired by a trip to First World War graves in France, where his grandfather and many other young Australian men died in action.

In each print Arnold depicts one of the component parts from a suit of armour against a ground of synthetic lace. The armour is overlaid with a traditional Provencal textile design that goes back centuries but is still found on today’s French market stalls. The sense of both strength and vulnerability evoked by the armour plays against the associations of the lace and the traditional pattern: delicacy but ‘cheapness’, implicit expendability and working-class origins. The images bring together a variety of themes including war, violence, the fragility of the male body, the use of young working-class men as gun fodder in the war, and collective memory.
Associated objects
Collection
Accession number
E.2093-2004

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Record createdMay 6, 2004
Record URL
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