Design for Bianchini Ferier, Lyon for a scarf

Pen and Gouache

c. 1940

75cm x 75cm

“The prowess of our R.A.F. has not taken long to show a real effectiveness. The encounters of the last few days has sown to our enemy our supremacy. Difficult missions have been crowned with success by our different units. Flying sometime above 7000 feet in clouded skies surprising the enemy at a low altitude and exposing themselves to the enemy to protect the army. Their courage never falters.”

In the months prior to the Fall of France in May 1940 – before the Battle of Britain began – the RAF was in action in the skies above France and this design for a scarf depicts aeroplanes and pilots of the RAF.