The Funeral of Marshal Lyautey, 1934

Wilhelm Thöny (1888–1949) left his hometown of Graz in 1931 and spent the years until 1938 in Paris. Along with cityscapes, landscapes and society portraits, the painter was fascinated by the great dramas of history and the fates of their protagonists, and created cycles on Beethoven, Napoleon and on the French Revolution. Marshal Hubert Lyautey (1854–1934) was a high-ranking officer in the French military, a general in the colonial wars and a war minister during World War I. In this small pen and ink drawing, Thöny captured his funeral. Following his passing on 27th July 1934, Lyautey was laid to rest with ceremonial pomp in his birthplace Nancy. Thöny revisited the theme in a similar drawing and oil painting.

AK, 2021