To the Unknown British Soldier in France [SEP] creator
To the Unknown British Soldier in France
To the Unknown British Soldier in France is an oil-on-canvas painting by Irish artist Sir William Orpen, exhibited in one state in 1923 and then modified in 1927. It was one of three paintings commissioned from Orpen to commemorate the Peace Conference at Versailles in 1919. The work is held by the Imperial War Museum in London.
Background.
Orpen was one of the first people chosen as a war artist by the British Ministry of Information in 1917. Orpen was
The Unknown Warrior
The British grave of The Unknown Warrior (often known as 'The Tomb of The Unknown Warrior') holds an unidentified British soldier killed on a European battlefield during the First World War. He was buried in Westminster Abbey, London on 11 November 1920, simultaneously with a similar interment of a French unknown soldier at the Arc de Triomphe in France, making both graves the first to honour the unknown dead of the First World War. It is the first example of a tomb of the Unknown Soldier.