Born into a family with military connections, Detaille embarked on his artistic career as a teenager in the studio of Jean Louis Ernest Meissonier (1815-1891). With the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, he received an appointment to serve in the Eighth Battalion, thus obtaining a position close to the conflict. This experience with the reality of war and military service shaped the rest of Detaille's career. This sheet contains eleven studies of military figures, primarily seen in profile, some just heads, others shown bust-length, with a pair of soldiers shown in full on horseback. Detaille has doodled his initials several times in the lower right corner as if trying to decide which would make the most attractive monogram. The inscription on verso hails the value of friendship, an important aspect of the camaraderie that united the French troops.
Detaille may have made this sheet when he was preparing his most ambitious graphic project devoted to military subjects, “Types et uniformes, l'armée française” (Paris, 1885-1889), which consisted of 346 figures and 60 colored plates. While the drawing does not directly correspond to a plate in this publication, the two central figures on horseback, with distinctive plumed helmets, resemble a lithograph featuring members of the cavalry during the second part of the war of 1870-71 that was included in the volume (vol. 1, p. 121).
Inscribed at lower right in pen and brown ink, "E. Detaille"; and in different styles, a series of five pairs of the artist's initials "E.D." Inscribed on verso by the artist in pen and brown ink, "L'Amitié! / est tel un sentiment plus beau que [obscured by old repair] / et amitié ce comp sentiment"; below in graphite, "Bristol bleute / ft or / anneau [?]".
McCrindle, Joseph F., former owner.