Orpen, William (1878-1931) - To the Unknown British Soldier in France 1922-28

This painting was the subject of some controversy after WWI, when the Imperial War Museum commissioned Orpen to paint three large group portraits of the delegates to the Paris Peace Conference. Two were completed but Orpen considered the conference was being conducted with a lack of respect or regard for the suffering of the soldiers who fought in the war, and he attempted to address this in the third painting. This picture was to show the delegates and military leaders in the Hall of Mirrors signing the Treaty of Versailles. After working on a composition for nine months, Orpen painted over all the figures and replaced them with a coffin covered by the Union Jack and flanked by a pair of ghostly and wretched soldiers clothed in rags, with two cherubs above them supporting garlands of flowers.

This painting, now known as To the Unknown British Soldier in France, was first exhibited in 1923 at the Royal Academy. The public voted it picture of the year, but almost all of the critics who reviewed the picture condemned it. It was not the group portrait the Imperial War Museum had commissioned, and the Museum refused to accept it. The picture remained in Orpen's studio until 1928, when he offered to paint out the cherubs and the soldiers, and the painting was accepted by the Museum in 1928.

This download consists of 2 images, in jpeg format, that are 600dpi and 4672 pixels wide by 5600, and 5368 wide by 6446 pixels tall. There is both a full-size and a detail picture in the download.

The picture is out of copyright and in the public domain, so you are free to use it in whatever way you'd like, including commercial use.

Read more about William Orpen.