I puchased thse two paintings today. They represent two soldiers of the French foreign Legion. One is dated 1955. Considering these guys look to be in their forties, they are most likely professionnals who enlisted before WW2. They probably fought during WW2 and if not, they cerainly fought in Indochina. The uniforms are desert ones , so possibly North Africa or Djibouti. The painter has possibly depicted them via a picture, because it was apparently painted in Paris by a painter called Ludequin N .
Not museum quality to be sure, but they do convey the nature of long service troops who serve on the outer marches.
They are modestly painted on wood , due to lack of material in the 1940s-1950s but I''ve seen things in museum that are not even half as good as these two. I have spent hours cleaning the cigarette tar from them due to heavy Gitane smokers that had been covering the paintings with a brown tarn varnish and included the cold tobacco smell. Fortunately I could remove it with a lot of elbow grease without damaging the painting.
I've also seen much worse in museums. It doesn't look to me like the artist(s) were trying for a "photographic" image but trying to capture a feel. To my eyes they did an excellent job of it. I'm not sure I would have been brave enough to try and clean them. Very glad you were able to do so without damaging the paintings.
cleaning tobacco tar on a painting can be done with an onion. Its mild acidity destroys the tar without damaging the paint.