The Defense of Champigny
French soldiers hold off the Prussians at Champigny, outside Paris, in December 1870, in a war painting by Detaille more than 2 meters wide. Full commentary ↓
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The Defense of Champigny is an oil painting by Edouard Detaille (1879) in the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. It measures 121.9 × 215.3 cm.
In the pictureFrench soldiers are spread along a snow-covered village street, lying flat or crouching behind a wall with their rifles aimed. On the right is a mansion pocked with bullet holes, on the left a white wall and a broken door, and in the foreground a makeshift barricade built from doors torn off their hinges. The sky is shrouded in yellowish smoke, and the soldiers' red trousers and blue coats stand out against the snow.
BackgroundIn the winter of 1870, with Paris under siege during the Franco-Prussian War, the French army tried and failed to break through the encirclement at Champigny, to the east. Detaille served in the war as a soldier, and afterward he painted a number of pictures that led the French to remember their defeat as a "brave defense." This painting is said to have served as the basis for a large panorama he later made with de Neuville.
Puzzle tipWide and crowded with figures, this picture suits a high piece count. Set up the mansion on the right and the white wall on the left first as two pillars, then gather the pieces of the soldiers' red trousers to fill in the front row. The yellowish sky at the top has similar-looking pieces, so leave it for last and match them by differences in the brightness of the smoke.
- Artist
- French, Paris 1848–1912 Paris
- Classification
- Paintings
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 121.9 x 215.3 cm
- Credit line
- Gift of Henry Hilton, 1887
Source: The Metropolitan Museum of Art ↗
In these collections: Winter Masterpiece Puzzles
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- What to Know Before Your First 300-Piece Puzzle
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- In What Order Do Fast Solvers Sort Their Puzzle Pieces?
Before fitting pieces, decide the sorting order. Divide the picture into zones, sort into edges, color blocks, and ambiguous leftovers, then finish small areas first: three steps.
