Plaquette
1916 (made)
| Artist/Maker | |
| Place of origin |
This bronze plaquette was made by Georges-Henri Prud’homme France, 1916. This plaquette commemorates the two years at the heart of the successful defence of Verdun by the French army. The city of Verdum on the Meuse, with its ring of forts, had been since the eighteenth century as a symbolic fortress on the road to Paris from the east. During 1916 it was at the centre of some of the fiercest fighting of the war between the French and the Germans, and terrible losses were incurred on both sides in the battle for its control.
Prud'Homme, medallist and sculptor, was a pupil of Alexandre Falguiére for sculpture and Alpheé Dubois for medallic engraving. He was highly successful and much respected by the art establishment, and exhibited for many years at the Paris Salon. He completed his first commission for the Paris Mint in 1898.
Prud'Homme, medallist and sculptor, was a pupil of Alexandre Falguiére for sculpture and Alpheé Dubois for medallic engraving. He was highly successful and much respected by the art establishment, and exhibited for many years at the Paris Salon. He completed his first commission for the Paris Mint in 1898.
Object details
| Category | |
| Object type | |
| Materials and techniques | Bronze |
| Brief description | Plaquette 'la France' at Verdun/French soldier, French 1916. |
| Physical description | Obv., female personification of France to left, wearing the breast plate, helmet and great-coat of a French soldier. She is surrounded by a circular frame decorated with laurel branches, with a plaque left blank for inscription beneath. Rev., figure of a French 'poliu,' naked except for his helmet, stands defiantly among the wreckage of war, clasping the French standard in his left hand and a sword in his right. At his feet a German helmet and a gun-carriage, among twisted wire and broken stakes. In the background broken trees, shell-holes and barbed-wire entanglements on the battlefield, and the rays of the rising sun over the name "VERDUN" on the horizon. Edge shows the incuse cornucopia of Paris Mint mark and BRONZE. |
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| Subjects depicted | |
| Summary | This bronze plaquette was made by Georges-Henri Prud’homme France, 1916. This plaquette commemorates the two years at the heart of the successful defence of Verdun by the French army. The city of Verdum on the Meuse, with its ring of forts, had been since the eighteenth century as a symbolic fortress on the road to Paris from the east. During 1916 it was at the centre of some of the fiercest fighting of the war between the French and the Germans, and terrible losses were incurred on both sides in the battle for its control. Prud'Homme, medallist and sculptor, was a pupil of Alexandre Falguiére for sculpture and Alpheé Dubois for medallic engraving. He was highly successful and much respected by the art establishment, and exhibited for many years at the Paris Salon. He completed his first commission for the Paris Mint in 1898. |
| Bibliographic references |
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| Collection | |
| Accession number | A.82-1920 |
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| Record created | June 24, 2009 |
| Record URL |
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