TWO FINE OLEOGRAPHS DEPICTING FAMOUS ZULU WAR SCENES (1881)

A pair of "Original and Copy Fac-Smile(s)" or oleographs after original paintings by Alphonse de Neuville (dated 1881). Published by The National Fine Arts Association, London 1882.

Each print measures 620 x 480 mm, printed on paper and laid on canvas, vividly coloured. Some fading and a crack in the sky area of "Saving the Queen's Colours" and with the imprint of the The National Fine Arts Association and a patch on the back of "The Last Sleep of the Brave".  Both in gilt frames which are chipped and dust soiled on the edges.

These prints, which are scarce, depict romanticised views of Lieutenants Melvill and Coghill fighting their way from the battlefield of Isandhlwana to save the "Queen's Colours" and the finding of their bodies later in the day. Although questionable regarding historical accuracy this pair of prints represents the heroic and glamorous view of the Zulu War. They were commissioned by J.G. Murdoch of The National Fine Art Association and exhibited at Messrs. Dowdeswell's gallery in New Bond Street, London in June 1882.

Oleography is a technique developed, but soon discarded, in the late nineteenth century. The aim was to make the surface of a colour print more like an oil painting through an embossed pattern suggesting the canvass or even, more ambitiously, the texture of the paint itself.

Alphonse-Marie-Adolphe de Neuville (31 May 1835 – 18 May 1885) was a French academic painter who studied under Eugène Delacroix. His dramatic and intensely patriotic subjects illustrated episodes from the Franco-Prussian War, the Crimean War, the Zulu War, and portraits of soldiers. Some of his works have been collected by the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg and by the Metropolitan Museum in New York.