The Flight from Belgium - YCBA Collections Search

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William Lee Hankey, 1869–1952, British, The Flight from Belgium, 1914

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Creator:

William Lee Hankey, 1869–1952

Title:

The Flight from Belgium

Date:

1914

Medium:

Aquatint, hard- and soft-ground etching, stipple etching, drypoint, roulette work and burnishing on moderately thick, moderately textured, cream wove paper

Dimensions:

Sheet: 20 1/16 x 23 1/16 inches (51 x 58.6 cm), Plate: 17 1/16 x 19 7/16 inches (43.4 x 49.4 cm), Image: 17 x 19 3/8 inches (43.2 x 49.2 cm)

Inscription(s)/Marks/Lettering:

Inscribed in graphite in artist's hand, lower left to lower center below image: "inv del et imp."; inscribed in graphite, lower left: "Edittion [sic] 35 only"; inscribed in graphite, lower right: "The Flight from Belgium - 1914."; inscribed in graphite, lower right: "1966.40.1"; inscribed in graphite, lower right: "Edittion [sic] - 35"; inscribed in graphite, lower left on back: "11021"

Artist's stamp: William Lee Hankey (Lugt 2637a); marked lower center on back: "STATON BROS | FINE ARTS | GERMANTOWN, PHILA" written in a circular design on a sticker

Artist's monogram lettered inside image: "WLH"

Signed in graphite, lower left to lower center below image: "W Lee Hankey inv del et imp."

Credit Line:

Yale Center for British Art, The G. Allen Smith Collection, transfer from the Yale University Art Gallery

Copyright Status:

Public Domain

Accession Number:

B1994.4.510

Classification:

Prints

Collection:

Prints and Drawings

Subject Terms:

Associated Places:

Belgium | Europe

Access:

Accessible by appointment in the Study Room [Request]
Note: The Study Room is open by appointment. Please visit the Study Room page on our website for more details.

Link:

https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/catalog/tms:23049

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Rupert Brooke served with the Royal Naval Division in the retreat from Antwerp. He wrote in a letter to the American poet Leonard Bacon on November 11, 1914 (Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library):
"I marched through Antwerp, deserted, shelled & burning, one night & saw ruined houses; dead men and horses. . . . And the whole heaven and earth was lit up by the glare from the great lakes and rivers of burning petrol, hills & spires of flame. That was like Hell, a Dantesque Hell, terrible. But later I saw what was a truer Hell. Hundreds of thousands of refugees, their goods on barrows & hand carts & perambulators & waggons, moving with infinite slowness out into the night. Two unending lines of them, the old men mostly weeping, the women with hard white drawn faces, the children playing or crying or sleeping."

Gallery label for Doomed Youth The Poetry and the Pity of World War I (Yale Center for British Art, 1999-06-22 - 1999-09-26)

Doomed Youth The Poetry and the Pity of World War I (Yale Center for British Art, 1999-06-22 - 1999-09-26) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

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