Notre tranchée à Carnoy 1914 (Our trench at Carnoy 1914)

A group of French soldiers in a trench at Carnoy on the Somme, France, during the First World War. All are rugged up wearing their greatcoats against the bitter cold. In the margin lower right the artist has drawn a miniature portrait in right profile of the figure in the right foreground. 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.