'Gurkha du Radjput - 125th Napiers Rifles (fait a Locon)', 1914 (c)

Lithograph by and after Paul Sarrut (1882-1969), 1914 (c).

One of 70 lithographs of sketches by Paul Sarrut, No 81 in a limited edition of 250 entitled 'British and Indian Troops in Northern France', published by H Delepine, Arras, 1920 (c).

Head and shoulders portrait of a Gurkha soldier wearing a slouch hat. The 125th Napiers Rifles were part of the 3rd (Lahore) Division, which landed in Marseille in France in September 1914. This portrait was drawn in Locon in the Pas-de-Calais, 8 km (5 miles) north of Béthune. The artist sketched a number of scenes and portraits in Locon from November 1914 to March 1915.

Camille Georges Paul Sarrut was born in Grenoble in May 1882. He was an artist and engraver who studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and exhibited at the Salon des Artistes Français from 1909, under the name Paul Sarrut. Having undertaken national service in 1903, he rejoined the French Army in 1914 as a corporal and served during the First World War (1914-1918). That same year he was posted to the British Army as a Military Liaison Officer and interpreter for the French, Indian and British troops on the Western Front. The National Army Museum holds a large collection of original sketches that Sarrut drew during the war, many of which he published in this set of lithographs in about 1920.