Postcard Jeanne d'Arc Les Voix Orléans Dubray bas-relief

Postcard reproducing a photograph of the bas-relief Les Voix from the monument to Jeanne d'Arc in Orléans, numbered 81 and published by Anciens Établissements Neurdein et Cie under the ND Phot imprint, printed by the Crété printing house in Corbeil-Paris. The caption reads Orléans - Bas-Relief de la Statue de Jeanne d'Arc, Les Voix. Jeanne, à Domrémy, écoute les Voix en gardant ses Brebis. Le Bois Chenu. The reverse is the undivided back format with separate columns for Correspondance and Adresse and the card is unused. The card is in good condition.

The relief belongs to a cycle of ten scenes from the life of Joan of Arc, produced between 1859 and 1861 by the French sculptor Vital-Gabriel Dubray and cast by Victor Thiébaut. The cycle adorns the pedestal of Denis Foyatier's bronze equestrian statue, unveiled in 1855 on the Place du Martroi in Orléans and cast from the bronze of nine cannons. The scene shows the moment when the young Jeanne, in Domrémy, first hears the voices of her saints: kneeling beneath the oak of the Bois Chenu while her sheep graze to the right, she looks up towards a cloud from which a crowned figure and a winged angel emerge. In 1988 the original reliefs, damaged by weather and traffic, were replaced on the pedestal by casts; the originals have since been kept in the reserves of the Musée des Beaux-Arts d'Orléans. The card probably dates from the years 1905 to 1918, when Neurdein was still operating independently before the merger with Lévy in 1920.