Le rève du poilu (French infantryman)

A French infantryman in a trench in France during the First World War is dreaming of being reunited with his wife and daughter. In the background are fields and houses. In the margin lower right the artist has drawn a miniature portrait of the face of the French soldier showing his relief and contentment. Louis Abel-Truchet was born at Versailles, France, in 1857, and died in action on the Western Front on 9 September 1918. He was a well known French painter, etcher and lithographer who studied in Paris with two highly renowned teachers, Jules Lefebvre and Benjamin Constant. He began exhibiting at the Paris Salons about 1891.