Model prisoners - portraits by Jacques-Louis David, 1795

 

From the beginning, David was a fervent supporter of the French Revolution, one of its greatest visual propagandists, and a regicide who voted for the execution of Louis XVI. He was a friend of Maximilien Robespierre, and became a deputy in the National Convention in 1792. He also became a member of the Comité de sûreté générale - a parliamentary committee of the Convention, formed that same year, which acted as a police agency during the Revolution - and was an active participant in the Reign of Terror. At the eventual fall and subsequent execution of Robespierre and several of his allies at the end of July 1794, David barely escaped meeting the same fate; he was out of the action nursing a "stomach pain." Nevertheless, he was arrested two days later, 2 August 1794. Imprisoned first in the Hôtel des Fermes, after a month he was transferred to the Palais du Luxembourg; he was eventually released on 28 December. But he was arrested again the following 28 May and was jailed at the Collège des Quatre-Nations - the present-day Institut de France - until 3 August 1795. (The dates given for this latter incarceration vary slightly depending on the source.) He was granted an amnesty on 26 October 1795.

Portrait of an unknown man. (In my opinion, this is one of the best of the group, but sadly unidentified.)

It was during the period of his second imprisonment in 1795 that David created this series of portraits of his fellow prisoners, fellow deputies of the National Convention, all arrested at the same time as the artist, and most of them former allies of Robespierre.

Jean-Baptiste-Louis Thirus (or Thyrus) de Pautrizel (25 August 1754 - 31 December 1836).

The inscription above reads: THIRUS DE PAUTRIZEL, Capitaine de Cavallerie en 1785, Représentant de la NATION FRANCAISE en 1794 e t 1795 - THIRUS DE PAUTRIZEL, Captain of the Cavalry in 1785, Representative of the FRENCH NATION in 1794 and 1795.

Portrait of an unknown man, sometimes identified as Edmond-Louis-Alexis Dubois de Crancé, dit Dubois-Crancé (14 October 1747 - 28 June 1814).

André Antoine Bernard de Jeuzines, dit Bernard de Saintes (21 June 1751 - 19 October 1818).

"Portrait of a Revolutionary." Unlike the other portraits here, this is only sketched out and remains apparently unfinished.

Jeanbon Saint-André (25 February 1749 - 10 December 1813).

The inscription above reads: Donum amicitiae. amoris Solatium. David faciebat in vinculis anno R.fr 3 (1795) messidoris 20 - The gift of friendship. The comfort of love. David did [this while] in chains in the third year of the French Republic (1795) Messidor 20 - the French Revolutionary calendar date of "Messidor 20" corresponds with 28 July 1795.

Joseph-Nicolas Barbeau du Barran (3 July 1761 - 16 May 1816).

Presumed portrait of Jean-Baptiste-Robert Lindet (2 May 1746 - 17 February 1825).

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All of these share a similar format and medium, all executed on a round support and, as far as I can tell, all are approximately eighteen centimeters (seven and an eighth inches) in diameter, and all but one are done in pen and black India ink with gray wash, and traces of white body color, over pencil.

Imperial splendour... in miniature - two portraits by Jean-Baptiste Fortuné de Fournier, after Winterhalter, 1857

 

The Empress Eugénie and Emperor Napoléon III. Miniatures on ivory: 22 x 15cm / 8.66 x 5.90 inches. The emperor's portrait is signed and dated. The condition of the pair is regrettable, especially as they are remarkably accurate copies of Winterhalter's portraits of the imperial couple. The original paintings, official state portraits of which dozens of copies were made, were believed lost in the burning of the Tuileries Palace in 1871.

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A view, also by Fortuné de Fournier, showing the actual portrait of the empress in situ in the Tuileries. (while I don't know this for certain, it seems likely that its pendant was hanging opposite, out of view in the watercolor.) On the wall to the right of the empress' portrait are Gérard's portraits of the emperor's parents, Louis Bonaparte and Hortense de Beauharnais, the latter shown with the couple's firstborn son, Napoléon Louis Charles Bonaparte, who died at the age of only four. Through the doorway can be caught a glimpse of the 1812 David portrait of Napoléon I in his study at the Tuileries. A bust of the latter is just visible at left, while one of his nephew can be seen on the console beneath the Winterhalter portrait of his wife.

A beautiful image of the empress, very true to the original portrait, and astonishing in its subtlety, considering that the entire miniature is less than six inches across.

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Jean-Baptiste Fortuné de Fournier (16 May 1797, Nice - 17 February 1864, Paris), French painter. A watercolorist and miniaturist, he is mainly remembered for his portrayals of the interiors of French imperial residences, particularly Saint-Cloud, Fontainebleau, and the Tuileries. His works are valuable documents for the study of decorative arts under the Second Empire, as they depict the contemporary décor of buildings which, for the most part, have now disappeared.

From oil to clay - terracotta portrait of Juliette Récamier after David, attributed to Clémence Sophie de Sermezy, circa 1825-35

Juliette Récamier (1777-1849), what we might now refer to as a "professional beauty", was avid in her pursuit of being portrayed by the best known artists of her time. Painted by François Gérard, Antoine-Jean Gros, the miniaturist Jean-Baptiste Augustin and, most famously, by Jacques-Louis David, she was also the subject of sculptors, such as the great Canova. And a sculptor from Lyon, Joseph Chinard (1756-1813), produced several busts and portrait medallions for madame Récamier. The present work - an interpretation of David's abandoned/unfinished portrait of the lady - has, for stylistic reasons, long been considered to be a product of the "school of Chinard" rather than that of the artist himself. Recent scholarship now points to one of his students, Clémence Sophie de Sermezy.

David's celebrated portrait of the twenty-three year old Juliette Récamier, begun in May of 1800.

De Sermézy (née Daudignac; 1767, Lyon -1850, Charentay) belonged to a well-to-do family in Lyon. We know little about her early life, except that she married Marc Antoine Noyel de Béreins, comte de Sermezy, in 1789 and, in the following decade, became a pupil of Chinard. She quickly gained some local fame as a sculptor and, in 1818, became an associate member of the Académie de Lyon. She also hosted a salon which became an artistic and cultural center for the city of Lyon and which was frequented by illustrious personalities of the time, both local artists and politicians and visiting celebrities.

This photograph looks to have been taken before the piece was cleaned and restored. 

Both hands were broken, and the roses in her right hand - a later addition? - do not remain in the restored statuette.

Detail of David's portrait.

This terracotta piece - roughly a foot long and high - is very much in line stylistically with the artist's work from this period. David's portrait of madame Récamier was begun in 1800 but, after a dispute between the artist and model, it languished in his studio, unseen by the general public until it was acquired by the Louvre in 1826. The date of its appearance there puts it squarely in the timeline now attributed to the statuette's creation.

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Bust of madame Récamier by de Sermezy's teacher, Joseph Chinard, circa, 1801-02.

The scabbard as wardrobe - discretions of the "antique"

In contemporary and later depictions, ancient Greek warriors were most frequently portrayed as going into battle nearly or entirely nude. Which seems, for several reasons, rather... awkward? In later, slightly more prudish eras, all that male nudity could be problematic for artists whose intention was to depict one or more of the celebrated ancient heroes. One device employed to avoid so much full-frontal "military splendor" can often be found in French paintings of the Neoclassical period: a warrior's scabbard proved convenient for obscuring his most masculine attributes. This worked well enough while the subject - Achilles, Castor and Pollux, Leonidas, etc. - struck a beautifully static "antique" pose, but we might imagine that any sort of real-life movement - say, walking? - would be rather uncomfortable thus encumbered.

Achille donne à Nestor le prix de la sagesse, by Joseph-Désiré Court, 1820.

Hélène délivrée par Castor et Pollux, by Jean-Bruno Gassies, 1817.

Léonidas aux Thermopyles, by Jacques-Louis David, 1814.

Guerrier avec épée tirée, by Jean-Eugène-Charles Alberti, 1808.

Briséis pleurant Patrocle, by Léon Cogniet, 1815.

Hélène délivrée par Castor et Pollux, by Amable-Paul Coutan, circa 1820s.

Thésée vainqueur du Minotaure, by François-Joseph Heim, 1807.

Egisthe croyant découvrir le corps d'Oreste mort, découvre celui de Clytemnestre, by Auguste-Hyacinthe Debay, 1823.

Soldat romain au repos, académie, by François-Xavier Fabre, 1788. In this case the covering is the attached sword belt, the baldric.

Antigone donnant la sépulture à Polynice, by Sébastien Norblin, 1825. Someone's arm also proves a useful aid to modesty.

Les Sabines / L'Intervention des Sabines / Les Sabines arrêtant le combat entre les Romains et les Sabins, by Jacques-Louis David, 1799.

Déshabillée - when you just can't be bothered to get all the way dressed

 Mefody Lukyanov, by Konstantin Somov, 1918.

(Lukyanov was the artist's lover from 1910 to 1932.)

Bei der Toilette, by Johann Baptist Reiter, 1842.

Doctor Alphonse Leroy, by Jacques-Louis David, 1783.

The comtesse du Barry with her page Zamor, by Jean-Baptiste André Gautier-Dagoty, circa 1774.

Queen Victoria, by Franz Xaver Winterhalter, 1843.

Jean Harlow, publicity for Dinner at Eight, 1933.

Nathaniel Hurd, by John Singleton Copley, 1765-66.

"Portrait of a Lady traditionally identified as Anne de La Grange-Trianon, circle of François-Hubert Drouais", first half of the 18th century.

Pierre-Jacques-Onésyme Bergeret de Grancourt, by François-André Vincent, 1774.

Portrait of a lady, by Franz Xaver Winterhalter, circa 1850s.

"Dr. Pozzi at home" (Samuel-Jean Pozzi), by John Singer Sargent, 1881.

Betrachtung im Negligée, by Johann Baptist Reiter, 1847.

Self-Portrait, by Johann Heinrich Roos, 1682.

Young woman, by Anna Dorothea Therbusch, circa 1770s.

Madame Souty reclinada en un sofá, by Ignacio Zuloaga y Zabaleta, 1921.

Johann Joachim Winckelmann, by Anton von Maron, 1768.

Lacing the Corset, by Constantinus Fidelio Coene, circa 1830s.

Sig Ulmanis, by Kris Studios, circa late 1950s.