Boilly's sans-culotte

Boilly, The Singer Chenard Dressed as a sans-culotte at the Festival of the Liberty of the Savoy, October 14 1792 
Oil on wood, 33.5cm x 22.5cm
Musée Carnavalet, Paris.

Here is another, equally iconic painting by Boilly from the Revolutionary era, now in the Musée Carnavalet.  It comes as a bit of a disappointment to learn that this famous heroic image does not depict a real sans-culotte at all, but the actor and singer Simon Chenard. The occasion was a festival held in Chambéry in October 1792 to celebrate the new Republic's military victory in the Savoy.  Chenard presumably featured a the performer of patriotic war songs such as the "Hymn of the Marseillaise" which the Convention decreed was to be sung at the celebration. Susan Siegfried comments that the picture resembles a fashion plate, and at one level, functioned as such. (p.41-2)  Chenard personifies the ideal of the Citizen Soldier, with his improvised army uniform over his working clothes.(I particularly like the strange fluffy clogs..) He carries the new national symbol, the tricolour flag inscribed with "La Liberté ou La Mort".  The figure appears as though on a stage, with a fictionalised backdrop of the victory in the Savoy.

Boilly's Triumph of Marat

Boilly, The Triumph of Marat, 1794
Oil on paper (seven sheets) mounted on canvas
80cm x 120cm.
Musée des Beaux-Arts, Lille

Here are a couple of posts on works by Louis-Léopold Boilly from the Revolutionary period.

The iconic Triumph of Marat is one of several canvases bequeathed to the Musée des Beaux-Arts Lille by the artist's son Julien.  In the late 1980s and 1990s the genesis of this  painting and its place in Boilly's oeuvre was the subject of a major revision by the American art historian Susan Siegfried.

Le Bivouac des sans-culottes

Taunay, Le bivouac des sans-culottes

48 × 49 cm, oil on canvas

Musée des beaux-arts d'Orléans 

This painting, by Nicolas-Antoine Taunay, is one of very few which depict French Revolutionary combattants sympathetically without any overt ideological message.  It is included in the Bridgeman Art Library, so it is reproduced many times on the internet but  there does not seem to be much information available about it.  The original is from the Musée des beaux-arts in Orléans, but it was acquired only in 1975. The title is usually given as Bivouac of the sans-culottes, but this may not be original -  the date of 1790 seems a little early for sans-culottes. On the other hand, to judge from their pikes and civilian clothing,  this is clearly a group of Revolutionaries.  The scene conveys a sense of their quiet comradeship and weary determination - I particularly like the man on the right puffing tranquilly on his clay pipe.

Taunay was a well-regarded landscape and genre artist, who studied initially with the history painter Nicolas-Guy Brenet and later with Francesco Casanova.   There is only one other Revolutionary scene by him known, a Fête de la Liberté, now in a private collection in  São Paulo.  It appears that during the Revolutionary years he continued to submit to the annual Salons mainly traditional historical and Biblical subjects, as well as landscapes of the Italian countryside.  In July 1792 he exhibited "The taking of a town" ("La prise d'une ville") which was bought "for the nation" and in 1798 "The exterior of a provisional military hospital", now in the Louvre. He is known to have taken refuge with his family in Montmorency during the Terror and perhaps showed his disillusionment in the large canvas "The Guillotine in Hell" in the Hermitage, which is ascribed to him on stylistic grounds.  Under Napoleon he enjoyed the patronage of the Empress Josephine and received numerous commissions for battle paintings, many of which are now in the collections at Versailles. In 1816, following the defeat of Napoleon, he journeyed to Brazil where he was invited to participate in the newly formed Academy of Fine Arts in Rio de Janeiro.  He returned to Paris in 1821 and died there in 1830.

References

Biographical notice in Jayne Wrightsman, The Wrightsman Pictures, Metropolitan Museum of Art 2005

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Gh_4yssGQgcC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA289#v=onepage&q&f=false

There is a full scale study,  Nicolas-Antoine Taunay (1755-1830) by Claudine Lebrun (ARTHENA, 2003).  However, from what little I can make out from Google "snippet view", this does not have anything new on Le Bivouac des sans-culottes.

Death of Marat by Roques

   Roques, Mort de Marat (1793) 163.2 cm x 128 cm.
Musée des Augustins, Toulouse

This striking rendition of the death of Marat by Guillaume-Joseph Roques (1754-1847) is the only painting of the subject to approach David's in sophistication and technical competence. Roques was a prominent provincial artist from Toulouse. In 1778 he had won the first prize of the Royal Academy of Painting and made the trip to study in Rome.  He returned to Toulouse after a few years and became an influential  teacher;  Ingres was among his pupils at the Toulouse Royal Academy of Arts. Roques seems to have weathered the vicissitudes of the Revolution and Restoration without trouble; his best known works apart from the Marat are a set of canvasses depicting the life of the Virgin Mary, painted from 1810–1820 for the choir of the church of Notre-Dame de la Daurade.

David's Death of Marat

David's Death of Marat is one of the most iconic pictures in Western art,  but there is much uncertainty surrounding its conception. Some of the pieces of the puzzle have only come to light very recently and are still the subject of unresolved speculation. What follows summarises some of the available evidence:

Revolutionary wallpaper discovered in a French church

This splendid Revolutionary wallpaper was discovered last year during renovations to the church of  Notre-Dame-de-la-Daurade  in the little town of  Tarascon-sur-Ariège  in south-west France. The church was briefly converted into a Temple of Reason in 1793. 

The paper, which is white with painted red and blue stripes, was stuck directly to the walls and lay concealed behind the retable in the choir.  One of the panels, revealed in June, is almost complete.  The local historical society has managed to unearth a register from the local commune dated 2nd December 1793 which  records the order for the church's re-dedication to "Reason, Liberty and Equality";  the local officials and National Guard  turned out for the occasion and patriots were required to decorate their doors with oak branches and tricolour flags. 

The find has attracted a lot of attention, and is likely to prove quite a conservation headache.  A figure of 20,000€ has been mooted, more if the 18th-century paintings of the retable, the original subject of the restoration,  are to be replaced whilst leaving the paper accessible.

References

 FranceInfo, "Des papiers peints de la Révolution uniques en France découverts dans une église de Tarascon-sur-Ariège",post of 11/07/2016
http://france3-regions.francetvinfo.fr/midi-pyrenees/ariege/papiers-peints-revolution-uniques-france-decouverts-eglise-tarascon-ariege-1046037.html

Video,14/07/2017: 

Tarascon-sur-Ariège : des tapisseries de la Révolution française découvertes dans l'église

   

La Dépêche, "Sous les tableaux de l'église, des traces de la Révolution"  post of 15/07/2016
http://www.ladepeche.fr/article/2016/07/15/2385180-sous-tableaux-eglise-traces-revolution.html

Archives de l'Ariège, Service éducatif, presentation: 
http://archives.ariege.fr/content/download/36359/471991/file/2%20%20Retable%20Tarascon.ppt

The triumph of the guillotine in Hell

[A quick break from festive cheer!]

The collective memory of the Terror was described by Michelet as "a huge Dantesque poem, which circle by circle, caused the descent of France into Hell".   This extraordinary painting entitled The Triumph of the Guillotine captures the vision perfectly:  Revolutionary iconography meets Hieronymus Bosch in an apocalyptic landscape of all-enveloping red. The picture, which is now in the Hermitage, is usually attributed to the landscape painter Nicolas-Antoine Taunay (1755-1830).  

In the painting's imagery, the real personages, institutions and policies of the Terror are transferred with effect to the infernal regions.  A mountain surmounted by a guillotine provides the central focal point like some infernal Calvary.   At the top of the canvas a group of artists and Jacobin poets, led by David with his painter's palette and easel, fly in amidst smoke and lightning bolts. On the right at mid-height sits the Revolutionary Tribunal, implacable as ever.  Across the bottom progresses a Revolutionary procession: Robespierre and  Saint-Just are carried in triumph, preceded by Marat in his bath. Scenes of killing and cannibalism occupy the foreground.  Even the demons of Hell themselves are afraid and flee, abandoning their flaming abyss to the Revolutionary invaders.

References

Nicolas-Antoine Taunay,  Le triomphe de la guillotine / Allégorie satirique révolutionnaire / le triomphe de Marat aux enfers
c. 1795. Hermitage, Oil on canvas.  129 x 168 cm
http://www.arthermitage.org/Nicolas-Antoine-Taunay/Triumph-of-the-Guillotine.html
The Carnavalet has a small, preliminary oil sketch:
http://www.photo.rmn.fr/archive/07-531643-2C6NU0JNI6BZ.html

The attribution to Taunay rests only on stylistic analysis, but  is accepted in the major monograph by Claudine Lebrun,  Nicolas-Antoine Taunay (1755-1830) (2003), p.44.

See also
Mehdi Korchane, "Thermidor et l'imaginaire de la Terreur", L'Histoire par l'image, Jan.2009
https://www.histoire-image.org/etudes/thermidor-imaginaire-terreur

Not just a Revolution for the young.....

A National Guardsman and his wife by Rémy-Furcy Descarsin (1746-1793)
73cm x 90.5 cm.  Oil.
Signed "Descarsin, painter to Monsieur, brother of the King 1791"
Musée de la Révolution Française, Vizille

This lovely painting was acquired by the Musée de la Révolution Française, Vizille in 2004, having recently come up for public auction.  A piece of political propaganda certainly, but as an unpatronising portait of two ordinary people, it shows the legacy of the Revolution at its best.

Of the painter, Rémy-Furcy Descarsin,  little is known.  He was active in Paris and failed to gain entry to the Academy of Painting in 1789 when he submitted a self-portrait. Apparently he had two musical sisters.  He styled himself painter to the comte de Provence, dating the painting  to before the latter's successful flight from Paris in June 1791.  The title is a bit puzzling; clearly the man is too old to be an active National Guardsman. In fact the uniform is purely symbolic. The subjects were an old couple from Nantes, who were the recipients of charitable attention from the local Jacobins.  Here is a contemporary account from the Annales Nantaises : 

2nd February 1791
A married couple, aged more than a hundred ("plus que centenaires") from the former diocese of Angers, named René Dogereau or Degro, and Perrine Trouillard, were living near the former Hermitage, in a state of abandonment and distress.  The Amis de la Constitution, who had heard about them though their inquiries after recommendations for public charity, awarded to these old people a pension which would continue to to be paid to whichever of the two remained living.  To give them an idea of the Revolution, which they could not expect to enjoy for long, they dressed them up in clothes in the three national colours.  The Compagnie des Adolescents then fetched them and took them to the Theatre, to performances of The Family Supper  and The Three Farmers which were put on in their benefit.  Dogereau, had been a wine grower, a ferryman and finally a caulker of boats.  He died a short time ago but his wife is still alive and still has the use of her senses. p.581-582.

References
Annales Nantaises,by  Michel Guimar, published in Year III of the Republic http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=7k8TAAAAQAAJ&q=p.158#v=onepage&q=dogereau&f=false

For a discussion of the painting, see : http://www.lafoliedix-huitieme.eu/peinture/garde-national-femme-t3682.html

Portrait of a Terrorist? Carrier at the Musée Lambinet

Anonymous portrait of Jean-Baptiste Carrier (1756-1794).
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jean-Baptiste_Carrier_1.jpg

This portrait of Jean-Baptiste Carrier, perpetrator of the notorious "Noyages de Nantes", was posted on the French version of Wikipedia in December 2009  and has subsequently found its way onto several other websites.  No dimensions are given - it was scanned from a 1980 edition of Michelet - so it is easy to miss that it is a miniature:  not snuff box lid size, but still pretty small.  The original is in the Musée Lambinet. 

The label in the museum ascribes it to David himself - not implausibly: it is an accomplished and arresting work.

The portrait in situ at the Musée Lambinet (my photo)

Lithograph by François-Séraphin Delpech
 after Zéphyrin Belliard

One Wikipedia commentator has cast doubt on whether the portrait really is Carrier. He has even consulted Carrier's descendants. (The Carrier gene is strong, he says cryptically - no doubt someone still has that nose!).  The family "swear by" a Delpech lithograph, the only other known likeness apart from overt caricatures.

http://fr.wikipedia.orzg/wiki/Discussion:Jean-Baptiste_Carrier


Personally I think the two images could well be the same man.  The real problem is accepting that this sympathetic and sensitive  portrait could indeed represent someone with such an odious and fearsome reputation as the murderous Carrier.