'Good-bye Old Man', 1916

Lithographic reproduction of a painting by F Matania, published by The Sphere and Tatler Limited, London, 4 September 1916.

This lithograph is a copy of a painting by Fortunino Matania (1881-1963) that was produced for the Blue Cross animal welfare charity. It captures the pathos of the all too common experience of the death of horses on the Western Front during the World War One (19-14-1918).

Matania was born in Italy and trained as an artist under his father. He established a name for himself depicting great events, including the sinking of the Titanic, and worked for many illustrated magazines, including 'The Sphere', in which this lithograph was published. During the First World War he became an official war artist and painted many scenes of life on the Western Front. Matania was renowned for his realism and accuracy and his wartime pictures captured, in great detail, the grim realities of trench warfare.