The present work depicts Scottish Highland soldiers returning from the front after the opening days of the First Battle of the Somme. Dated on the front and inscribed on the reverse “Retour du combat / 1st, 2 et 3 juillet 1916 / Écossais,” the watercolour refers to the first three days of the Battle of Albert (1–3 July 1916). The kilted figures are clearly Highland infantry. The dark blue tartan, with its repeated pale bands, corresponds most closely to the Mackenzie sett worn by the Seaforth Highlanders possibly the 2nd Battalion, present at Beaumont-Hamel on 1 July 1916.
The composition forms part of François Flameng’s wartime production. Before 1914, Flameng (1856–1923) was known primarily as a portrait and history painter and moved in the circle of Gérôme, Clairin, Helleu and John Singer Sargent. At the outbreak of war he joined the Peintre des Armées mission and went to the Aisne Front in 1914. Unlike many official artists, he worked in close proximity to events, sending finished canvases back to Paris for exhibition at the Hôtel des Invalides while the conflict was still ongoing.
The inscription “1st, 2 et 3 juillet 1916 / Écossais” situates the scene at the most violent stage of the Somme’s opening, when the British Army sustained unprecedented casualties. Several Scottish Highland battalions were heavily engaged across the Albert sector during these days. Flameng does not present a specific action, but rather the aftermath - soldiers withdrawn from the line, burdened with equipment, their expressions subdued and fatigued, but stoically resolute.
Flameng’s treatment is direct and observational, avoiding theatrical heroics in favour of measured realism. During the war he served as honorary president of the Society of Military Painters and was accredited by the Ministry of War. In 1920 he was appointed a Commander of the Legion of Honour and later donated much of his wartime production to the Musée de l’Armée, which makes surviving preparatory works such as this comparatively rare.
The finished painting, for which this is a preparatory study, is today held in the Musée d’Orsay, Paris.
