Edouard Detaille (1848-1912) Soldiers, Study, Black Ink On Wood Panel

Edouard Detaille (1848-1912)
Soldiers, a study
Black ink on a wood panel
12.5 x 13 cm
Framed : 20 x 20.5 cm
On the back of the panel a label inscribed "Dessin à la plume par Detaille Edouard. Vente faite par son légataire universel Maitre L. Juillemier. Chateau de la Tourehelle (?) à S K de Meung sur Beuvron les 28, 29 et 30 juillet 1929"
(Pen drawing by Detaille Edouard. Sale made by his universal legatee Maitre L. Juillemier. Chateau de la Tourehelle (?) in S K de Meung sur Beuvron on 28, 29 and 30 July 1929.)

Edouard Detaille's style and talent as a draughtsman are immediately recognisable in this work, with all the richness of detail that makes his drawn studies veritable portraits sketched from life. What is much more surprising is the choice of support, a small wooden panel. Perhaps this was simply what he had on hand when he wanted to draw these soldiers from life. A fine piece of wood rather than paper.
But as we know, Detaille had an inventive and original spirit, and this was very much in keeping with him.

Jean-Baptiste Édouard Detaille (Paris 5 October 1848 – 23 December 1912 Paris) was a French academic painter and military artist noted for his precision and realistic detail.
Detaille grew up in a prosperous military family in Picardy; his grandfather had been an arms supplier for Napoleon. An amateur artist who was friends with a number of collectors and painters, including Horace Vernet, Detaille's father encouraged his son's artistic endeavors. He began his artistic studies at age seventeen under the famous military painter Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier; he had originally approached him to ask for an introduction to the renowned Alexandre Cabanel but Meissonier decided to teach Detaille himself. Meissonier became a major influence on his style, and it was he who inculcated an appreciation for accuracy and precision in Detaille.
Detaille made his debut as an artist at the Salon—the official art exhibition of the Académie des Beaux-Arts—of 1867 with a painting of Meissonier's studio. At the Salon of 1868, he exhibited his first military painting, The Drummers Halt, which was based solely on his imagination of the French Revolution. With Repose During the Drill, Camp St Maur, which he debuted the following year, Detaille established his reputation as a painter. In the spring of 1870, he went on a "sketching trip" to Algeria with three other young painters, Étienne-Prosper Berne-Bellecour, Alexander Louis Leloir, and Jehan Georges Vibert.
Detaille enlisted in the 8th Mobile Bataillon of the French Army when the Franco-Prussian War broke out in 1870; by November he was seeing and experiencing the realities of war. This experience allowed him to produce his famed portraits of soldiers and historically accurate depictions of military manoeuvres, uniforms, and military life in general. He eventually became the official painter of the battles. He published a book called L'Armée Française in 1885, which contains over 300 line drawings and 20 color reproductions of his works.
Detaille was one of the first artists to buy photographs from Eugène Atget.
In 1912, Detaille created new uniforms for the French army. They were never adopted by the Minister of War, but the blue-gray greatcoats would influence later French World War I uniforms, and the Adrian helmet was heavily influenced by his designs.
During his life, he had amassed an impressive collection of military uniforms and artifacts and bequeathed to the Musée de l'Armée in Paris following his death.
Detaille appears as a guest at a party at the home of the Princesse de Guermantes in Part Two: Chapter One of Marcel Proust's novel, Cities of the Plain, where Detaille is referred to as "the creator of the Dream", his 1888 painting also known as Le Rêve (The Dream) which shows soldiers asleep on a battlefield dreaming of military glory. The painting, which is located at the Musée d'Orsay in Paris.