VINTAGE STAMP 1955
PAUL LEMAGNY (1905-1977)
Mount Pelée (1,397 m - 4,583 ft)
France (Martinique)
The artist
Paul Pierre Lemagny (1905-1977) is a French painter and engraver. Between 1940 and 1958, Paul Lemagny designed more than two hundred models of stamps for the postal administration, in particular the portrait of many illustrious men, one of his specialties. Forty-five of these models gave rise to the issue of a stamp, including Madame Récamier, who received the philatelic art prize awarded for the first time at the CNEP's autumn show in 1950. He also created a series on symbolist poets (Baudelaire, Verlaine and Rimbaud) who are models of the genre both in the portraits of the poets and in the evocations of their works. Lemagny was elected to the French Academy of Fine Arts in 1949, of which he became the youngest member at age 43.
The Volcano
Mount Pelé (1,397 m - 4,583 ft ) or Mount PElée (Le Mont Pelé (in french), is an active volcano at the northern end of Martinique, an island and French overseas department in the Lesser Antilles Volcanic Arc of the Caribbean. Its volcanic cone is composed of stratified layers of hardened ash and solidified lava. Its most recent eruption was in 1932. The stratovolcano's 1902 eruption destroyed the town of Saint-Pierre, killing 29,000 to 30,000 people in the space of a few minutes, in the worst volcanic disaster of the 20th century. ] The main eruption, on 8 May 1902, left only two survivors in the direct path of the blast flow: Ludger Sylbaris survived because he was in a poorly ventilated, dungeon-like jail cell and Léon Compère-Léandre, living on the edge of the city, escaped with severe burns. The volcano is currently active. On December 6, 2020, The Martinique Volcano Observatory (MVO) has raised Mount Pelee's alert level to Yellow [Restless] from Green [Normal] due to an increase in seismicity under the volcano beginning in April 2019, and observations of tremor last month. As far as is known, this is the first sign of activity since the end of the 1929-32 eruption. This volcano is, of course, highly dangerous, and great vigilance of its activity is required. Whether or not it is going to enter a new eruptive period is currently unknown. According to the MVO press release "The increase in seismicity of superficial volcanic origin (up to 4-5 km below the summit) observed since April 2019, is therefore clearly above the base level characteristic for Mount Pelée. In April 2019, volcanic seismicity appeared at depth around and under Mount Pelée (more than 10 km below sea level). It could correspond to the arrival at depth of magmatic fluids. Finally, new recorded tremor-type signals were observed on November 8 and 9, 2020: they could correspond to a reactivation of the hydrothermal system. Even if, in the current state of measurements, there is no deformation of the volcano on the scale of the observation network, the appearance, in a few months, of these three different types of seismic signals of volcanic origin shows a clear change in the behavior of the volcanic system, the activity of which is increasing from the base level observed over several decades."
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2022 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau
