Famous Sayings: Voltaire (Signed) (Original)

Artist: Paul Rainer
Medium: Watercolour on Board
Size: 16" x 11" (415mm x 270mm)
Date: 1967
Signature: Signed by artist bottom left
Code: RainerVoltaire

This is the Signed unique original Watercolour painting by Paul Rainer.

Who Said? "In this country it is thought necessary to kill an admiral from time to time to encourage the others." The quote comes from his masterpiece Candide when the titular optimistic character, travelling around the world arrives in Portsmouth in time to witness Admiral Byng's execution; he leaves without setting foot in England.

Except in his visit to "Eldorado" Candide meets with disaster and cruelty everywhere. The painting depicts Voltaire (real name Francoise-Marie Arout) being thrown into a cell in the Bastille for having written satirical verses against the Regent of France Philip, Duke of Orleans.

From Look and Learn #273 8 April 1967.

• Artist Biography
  Paul Rainer (Flourished 1950s and 1960s)
  Paul Rainer, an illustrator about whom not much is known. We know he was active in the 1950s in Everybody's Magazine, and in the 1960s contributed to both Bible Story and Look and Learn.
  
  He illustrated a couple of series in Look and Learn including 'People and Plants' in 1966, the excellent 'Who Said...?' in 1967 and various others in 1968-69. Before that, he was one of the regular illustrators for Bible Story, illustrating 'The Story of the Life of Jesus' (1964).