Luc-olivier Merson - To The Victims Of Duty, The Grateful Homeland

1884
Drawing in Indian ink and gouache
31.5×22.5 cm at sight / 48.5×41.3 cm with its frame
Monogrammed lower left “LOM”, dedicated, dated and signed lower right “to mr. Dick de Lonlay / Memory of the author / 1884. LO Merson »

This drawing by Luc-Olivier Merson was used to illustrate the publication Les Victimes du Devoir, published in June 1884 at the initiative of the Paris Press Union. It was sold at a party to raise funds to create a relief fund for victims of duty. Established in 1885, this fund was recognized as being of public utility in 1889. Coordinated by the journalist Dick de Lonlay, to whom this drawing is dedicated, this artistic publication included several drawings by the most prominent illustrators at the time.
For his composition, Luc-Olivier Merson chose to represent France in the form of a feminine allegory who holds a tricolor shield in one hand and glorifies in the other, brandishing a palm leaf and a laurel wreath in a gesture of blessing, the victims of duty symbolized by a firefighter surrounded by three soldiers (an officer, an infantryman and a cuirassier) and a rescuer. Behind her, in a niche, stands a draped figure, curled up on herself, which evokes their disastrous fate. The genie-child at the bottom left, a motif regularly used by the artist in his allegorical compositions, bears a sign engraved with the words “To the victims of duty the grateful fatherland”.
Luc-Olivier Merson provides here an overview of his talents as a designer and illustrator, put to the service of an ascending diagonal composition which leads the eye towards the protective figure of the French Republic.