The present work depicts members of the Royal Scots 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), when several Royal Scots battalions suffered heavy losses during the British Army’s opening offensive.
The composition forms part of François Flameng’s wartime production. Before 1914, Flameng (1856–1923) was known as a portrait and history painter, and associated with 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 painted during the conflict itself, sending finished works to Paris for exhibition at the Hôtel des Invalides, where they were shown while the war was ongoing.
The inscription “1st, 2 et 3 juillet 1916 / Écossais” places the watercolour at the most severe stage of the Somme’s opening. On 1 July, the British Army suffered the worst single day in its history. The 15th and 16th Royal Scots of the 34th Division advanced towards the German positions around Fricourt and Contalmaison under sustained machine-gun fire. Survivors, joined by the 11th and 12th Battalions in the following days, withdrew from the front between 1 and 3 July - the moment shown here.
Flameng’s approach is direct and observational, avoiding overt heroics. 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 work to the Musée de l’Armée, making this watercolour a rare example on the market.
More than a regimental scene, the work records the exhausted return of Scotland’s oldest regiment after the opening days of the Somme. The finished painting, for which this is a study, is held by the Musée d’Orsay, Paris.
