WWI Framed Ration Coupon Collage Folk Art Strasbourg Alsace Germany Trench 1917
Fascinating piece of early 20th-century folk art ephemera, basically a dense, grid-like collage of WWI-era ration coupons, municipal cards, postal fragments, and printed labels, assembled on a period rigid backer and centered around Strasbourg (Strassburg) in German-controlled Alsace. This snap of civilian/military life near the end and just after WW1 was made by someone saving and sorting these scraps of daily ration paper and turning them into a piece of art. That art remains remarkably intact and well preserved some 109 years later. The art came in a worn period frame not suitable for display and has been professionally remounted in full float view with a custom double mat in hunter green and brick, set in a simple wood frame with real glass glazing.
Mounted to the mat using archival low-tack transfer tape, so reversible if you are compelled to reframe. Resealed and ready to hang. If curious, further historical details follow at the bottom.
Overall frame: approximately 26" x 20". Visible artwork: approximately 20" x 16". Even, warm toning throughout; no evidence of significant UV exposure or fading. Printed text and details remain crisp and legible across the full surface. Edges of the artboard show natural irregularity.
Period backer board shows age-appropriate wear on reverse; structurally sound. Remounted in full float view using archival low-tack transfer tape; reversible. Real glass glazing; simple wood frame, new.
New hanging hardware installed; display-ready. The materials in this collage date from roughly 1917 to early 1919, spanning the final years of German administration and the immediate transition period, which accounts for the mix of German-language municipal documents alongside French-language cards such as the. (meat ration card) issued by the Ville de Strasbourg. The bulk of the material consists of municipal ration cards covering butter, sugar, meat, bread, and potatoes.
, along with divisible coupon strips for measured weekly and daily quantities. Interspersed are military ration supplements marked. Sauerkraut and vegetable order cards, soap ration cards.
, and numbered administrative fragments from Bezirk 471 and 472. Flanking the central image are two woodcut-style vignettes, likely regional Alsatian landscape prints pulled from period printed materials; no attribution is visible. I imagine despite the tough circumstances the landscape was still just incredible as it is now.
At the center of the composition sits a printed image of a nail cannon. Kriegswahrzeichen genagelt in der Kais. These nail figures were made at the Imperial Artillery Workshop in Strasbourg. Nagelfigur were a genuine WWI fundraising and morale phenomenon, big iron figures displayed publicly where citizens paid to drive a nail in, proceeds going to war relief funds.
If you don't know anything about the genre, look it up, neat stuff.