Notre Dame De Lorette Illustration.
I created this illustration using Staedtler Fineliners on 300gsm Fabriano Paper.
Notre Dame de Lorette, also known as Ablain St.-Nazaire French Military Cemetery, is the world's largest French military cemetery. It is the name of a ridge, basilica, and French national cemetery northwest of Arras at the village of Ablain-Saint-Nazaire. I have produced this illustration for a book I am currently working on.
The ground Notre Dame De Lorette sits on was strategically important during the First World War and was bitterly contested in a series of long and bloody engagements between the opposing French and German armies. The Battles of Artois, where this site is situated, were as costly in French lives as the better-known Battle of Verdun. As with numerous other sites across France, Notre Dame de Lorette became a national necropolis, sacred ground containing the graves of French and Colonial fallen as well as an ossuary, containing the bones of those whose names were not marked.