Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Camouflaged Cannon Duplicate

purchase online

Here's an oddity: In an earlier post, we reproduced a painting (the top image above) by an artist named S. Ugo, of British soldiers applying a dazzling camouflage scheme to field artillery. It was reproduced initially in The Sphere (August 3, 1918:86-87). But more recently, we ran across a second reproduction (the bottom image above) of what at first appears to be the very same painting. This one appeared in color in Samuel John Duncan-Clark, History's Greatest War: A Pictorial Narrative. Geographical Publishing Company, 1919, pp. 50-51. As becomes clear when the two are viewed together, there are some curious differences. The bottom one is a flopped version in which the artillery faces left. In addition, four airplanes and a dirigible have been added to the sky. Notice that it's also cropped—and the artist's signature has disappeared.