A Peace Conference at the Quai d'Orsay

William Orpen, 1919

Painted in 1919 by the Irish artist William Orpen, this canvas was one of several commissions he received to record the Paris Peace Conference. It shows the preliminary discussions of the so-called Council of Ten, made up of two delegates each from Britain, France, the United States, Italy and Japan. The figures sit and stand around a table in the Hall of Clocks at the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the Quai d'Orsay, where the conference was formally opened on 18 January 1919. The politicians and diplomats are framed by an elaborately decorated room, with chandeliers, heavy gilded cornices and a statue of Victory above an ornate fireplace, which gives the scene a almost theatrical setting. Part group portrait and part history painting, the work is held by the Imperial War Museum in London.

Painter: William Orpen
Date: 1919
Medium: oil paint, canvas
Dimensions: 124 × 102 cm
Museum: Imperial War Museums
Genre: portrait, group portrait, history painting
Depicts: Robert Borden, David Lloyd George, table, Billy Hughes, Louis Botha, Bonar Law, Georges Clemenceau, statue

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More works by William Orpen

**The Signing of Peace in the Hall of Mirrors, Versailles, 28 June 1919**1919Imperial War Museums

**To the Unknown British Soldier in France**1927Imperial War Museum London

**Dead Germans in a Trench**1918Imperial War Museum London

**Lieut A. P. F. Rhys Davids, DSO, MC (1897–1917)**1917Imperial War Museums

**Winston Churchill**1916National Portrait Gallery

**Homage to Manet**1909Manchester Art Gallery

**Le Chef de l’Hôtel Chatham**1921Royal Academy of Arts

**Ganga Singh, Maharaja of Bikaner**1919National Portrait Gallery

**Self Portrait**1917Imperial War Museums

**Major J B McCudden, VC, DSO, MC, MM**1918Imperial War Museums