To continue with Sager’s alleged origins, some say he was a native of Austria who moved to France before the Great War. The Great War ran from June 2014 until November 2018; the United States joined the Allies in April 2017. If born in 1870, he would have been thirty by the time he arrived in Paris around 1900. Or born in 1881, he would be nineteen by 1900, while living and sketching in Paris. According to Alan Petrulis, “Paris at this time had a reputation for its fashion and its loose morals, both of which Sager did his best to exploit,” (Petrulis). During the war, he sketched military postcards for the firm of A. Noyer. Noyer Studio, based in Paris, was run by the photographer Alfred Noyer.
Xavier Sager produced the postcard, “Strategy” (c. pre WW1); supposedly with H.G. Wells's book, “Little Wars: A Game for Boys from Twelve Years of Age to One Hundred and Fifty and for that more intelligent sort of girl who likes boys’ games and books,” in mind. (Man of Tin). The postcard image reveals her ammunition in tiny hearts which she appears to be using to defeat or win over the tiny male soldiers. Then there are the dead and dying men on the floor as if she is toying with them as a proverbial Femme Fatale. This theme of risqué art is carried over in Sager’s sculpture. Two pieces were produced in 1930, the year he allegedly died. If the sculpture is by the same artist as the postcards then he was born in 1881, unless he died the same year he cast the sculpture. The Sager sculpture work gives credence to two artists of the same name.
