NAM.1969-10-536-1

‘Amiens Cathedral, French patrolling aircraft overhead’, 1916. Lithograph after Muirhead Bone, 1916, published as part of ‘The Western Front’ series, 1917. Associated with World War One, Western Front (1914-1918). The scene is described in the volume as, ‘The “Parthenon of Gothic Architecture” is seen in this exquisitely delicate and sensitive drawing from the south-east, with the lovely rose window of the south transept partly in view on the left. The wooden spire, which Ruskin called “the pretty caprice of a village carpenter,” looks finer in the drawing than in the original, the relative flimsiness of the material being less apparent. Nothing is lost by the intervention of the foreground houses, as the façade of the south transept, like the famous west front and the choir stalls, is sheathed with sand-bags to a height of thirty or forty feet for protection against German bombs. Patrolling French aeroplanes are seen in the sky.’

World War One, Western Front (1914-1918)