Photo By Jean Jové, 18th Infantry Regiment (18th Infantry Battalion), World War I

Photo taken on site during WWI showing the inscriptions painted on the fabric (“RÉPUBLIQUE FRANÇAISE - 18ᵉ”) refer to the 18ᵉ Infantry Regiment, a legendary regiment nicknamed “The Brave 18ᵉ,” whose home base was the Bernadotte Barracks in Pau,in the Basse-Pyrénées region at the time. At that time, colour photography did not exist in this form of print. Art photographers took black-and-white photographs and then applied paint (gouache, watercolor, or oil) directly to the print to highlight symbolic details: the tricolour of the flag, the gold trim on the embroidery and the pike, as well as the Croix de Guerre or decorative cravats.
The flag is depicted attached to bundles of rifles (the 1886 model Lebel rifles suspended in bundles). The large tear visible in the blue section of the flag (the first third) and the decorated sash bear witness to the terrible hardships endured by this regiment—composed of soldiers from Béarn, Gascony, and the Basque Country—on the front lines of World War I. The 18th Infantry Regiment distinguished itself particularly during the battles of Charleroi (1914) and Verdun (1916), as well as during the heroic and bloody capture of the Craonne Plateau and the Chemin des Dames (May 1917). This type of large-format, enhanced, framed print was a patriotic work commissioned as a memento or for halls of honor, immortalizing the glorious but tattered flag of the Pau regiment.
The caption reads: “Photo by J. Jové / Pau.” Jean Jové had his studio in Pau (notably on Rue de la Préfecture and Rue Maréchal Joffre) and was very active before and during World War I.