Lavery, John; The First Wounded at The London Hospital, 1914; The Royal London Hospital Museum & Archives; ArtUK

Medium: oil on canvas; Measurements: H 64 x W 77 cm; The Royal London Hospital Museum & Archives Accession Number: RLHINV/11; Acquisition:

The First Wounded in London Hospital, August, 1914. Sir John Lavery RA RSA RHA (1856–1941). 1915. Oil on canvas. 1915. Collection: The McManus: Dundee’s Art Gallery and Museum. 

Medium: oil on canvas; Measurements: H 64 x W 77 cm; The Royal London Hospital Museum & Archives Accession Number: RLHINV/11; Acquisition:

Lavery had joined the Artists’ Rifles, but his age and health counted against him, and he was not considered fit enough to go to the front. Since he was, as Nuala Johnson puts it, “restricted to home-front duty” (161), he concentrated on conditions at home. As an official war artist, he produced some moving paintings about the war’s effects; prints of this painting were used for fund-raising. Note that the nurse is attending a patient who is wearing a kilt.

The two pictures are clearly of the same scene but with the one in The Royal London Hospital being a smaller part of the one in Dundee.

Johnson, Nuala C. “In the Shadow of Centenaries: Irish Artists Go to War.” Memory, Place and Identity: Commemoration and Remembrance of War and Conflict. Ed. Danielle Drozdzewski et al. London: Routledge, 2016. 146-166.