Chapter XVIII From Nicolas Poussin to Corot
French seventeenth-century Art does not offer any such difficult problems as those presented to us by the portrait-painters who lived and laboured during the period of the Clouets, for the artists of this latter period in most cases were accustomed to sign their names to at least a certain number of their works, whereby they can be easily identified.
On the very threshold of this new Art-development we find the Brothers le Nain, who, choosing a totally different type of work, kept aloof from kings, princes and courtiers and devoted their attention chiefly to scenes of peasant life. Le Repos des Paysans at the Louvre is one of their best and most characteristic works. So also are La Forge and a portrait of Henry II de Montmorency, the last of his race, which ought to be at Chantilly. There is in the Cabinet Clouet at the Musée Condé a powerful portrait of Dr. Fagon, physician to Louis XIV, by Mathias le Nain. Chardin, who continued in their tradition a century later, is unfortunately not represented in the Musée Condé.
Nicolas Poussin also adopted a style of his own, although it was of a different kind. He was greatly attracted by the antique and his heart was set on visiting Rome, whither, after long struggles in Paris, he at length found his way. There he received from the painter Domenichino the necessary training for the work which he desired to take up. The French sculptor Quesnoy befriended him, and the poet Marino introduced him to Cardinal Barberini, who commissioned from him two pictures: The Death of Germanicus and The Capture of Jerusalem. When fame came to him France reclaimed him. He was greatly favoured by Richelieu and entrusted with the decoration of the Louvre. He found, however, a rival in this enterprise in the person of Simon Vouet; and difficulties arose, because Poussin claimed his right to carry out the whole work independently and on his own responsibility. Finding that he could not attain this object, he returned to Rome under the pretext of fetching his wife and never returned. He lived thenceforth in Italy; for, like the Brothers le Nain, he had no desire to become a Court Painter. His pictures were, nevertheless, greatly admired in France during his lifetime; and there are no less than nine large canvases by him in the Galerie des Peintures at the Musée Condé, besides numerous drawings. Amongst these may be noted: The Infancy of Bacchus; Theseus finding his Father’s Sword (with a striking architectural background); and Numa Pompilius and the Nymph Egeria, a composition wherein the artist displays to the full his skill in dealing with romantic landscape. A drawing of Daphne131 flying to her father’s protection who transforms her into a laurel-bush, has special charm and shows those characteristics which he handed on to his brother-in-law and pupil Dughet, called after him “Gaspar Poussin.” There are two landscapes by the latter at Chantilly (Galerie des Peintures): An Alley in a Wood, and A View of the Roman Campagna, a subject of which he never tired. His sunsets foreshadow those of Claude Lorraine, who in his power of rendering atmospheric effect and the rays of the sun was only equalled by Turner some centuries later. The National Gallery and the Louvre possess some of Claude’s finest landscapes, while Chantilly has chiefly drawings, amongst which the most noteworthy are the Castello di S. Angelo and the Aqueducts of the Roman Campagna.132
Philippe de Champaigne, who came in his youth to France from Brussels, was a college friend of Poussin at Laon in 1623; and shares with him that same sense of freedom in his work. Poussin reached his goal in Rome through classical work, whilst Philippe de Champaigne devoted himself to portraiture, in which class of work he was most assiduous. His portraits of Cardinals Richelieu and Mazarin in the Musée Condé came from the Gallery in the Palais-Royal and are magnificent examples of his methods.
Another portrait-painter who deserves mention here is Jacques Stella, who painted the Grand Condé as the Hero of Rocroy, at the age of twenty-two—a portrait which is singularly attractive and has a special historical interest. This painting, which was always highly prized by the Bourbon-Condé family, now hangs in the Galerie des Batailles.
Another portrait of the same personage, painted after he had reaped further laurels at Fribourg and at Nördlingen, is by Beaubrun, the same artist who painted his only sister Geneviève de Bourbon. Both these pictures are in the Cabinet Clouet.
A figure which stands out with some insistence amongst French artists of the seventeenth century is Charles Le Brun. He was first of all a pupil of Simon Vouet, but becoming acquainted with Nicolas Poussin and urged on by enthusiasm for his work, followed this master to Rome. Returning to Paris with an established reputation, he fell in with Colbert, who perceived in him the very person needed for the Gobelins Factory. Le Brun fully realised these expectations since he not only organised this great concern but subsequently, with the assistance of Van Meulen, furnished designs for a History of the Kings of France, which was presently reproduced in tapestry in those celebrated workshops. He was also the founder of the French Academy in Rome; and Louis XIV, who conferred on him the office of Court Painter, took him to Flanders during the campaign of 1676. The portrait at Chantilly of Pomponne de Bellièvre, first President of the Parlement of Paris (engraved by Van Schuppen), represents his skill as a painter of portraits. His work can, however, be more profitably studied in the Galerie d’Apollon at the Louvre.
Eustache Le Sueur, another pupil of Simon Vouet, earned fame by his decorative work in the Hotel Lambert at Paris and by his Scenes from the Life of St. Bruno, now in the Louvre. He is represented at the Musée Condé by some fine drawings.
When Colbert was supplanted by Louvois another painter came to the front in the person of Mignard, also a pupil of Vouet. He studied in Rome, where he copied a number of paintings in the Farnese Gallery for the Cardinal of Lyons, Richelieu’s brother. He married the beautiful Anna Avolara, daughter of a Roman architect and model for his Madonnas, for which there was a great demand. No sooner had he acquired a certain amount of fame than the King of France commanded him to return home. On the way, however, he fell ill, and had to stop at Avignon. Here he first became acquainted with Molière; and the portrait which he painted of this great poet is beyond doubt his chef d’œuvre.133 It occupies a prominent position in the Tribune at Chantilly, where it commands much attention and admiration. The great esteem in which the author of Tartuffe was held by the Grand Condé is well known and it is by a singular piece of good fortune that the best of all the existing portraits of Molière should have found its way into the Musée Condé. If Mignard—and not without reason—is sometimes accused of superficiality, this complaint must surely be modified by the evidence of this portrait, which displays an artist of very considerable power.
There is at Chantilly another portrait by Mignard of special interest. It is that of Madame Henriette d’Angleterre, the beautiful and ill-fated daughter of Charles I, first wife of Philippe, Duc d’Orléans, the King’s brother. He also repeatedly painted likenesses of the young King himself, including one sent to Spain to be shown to his intended bride the Infanta Marie Thérèse.
At a maturer age Louis XIV was painted by Rigaud, a pupil of Le Brun. The portrait of him at Chantilly (Cabinet Clouet) is a smaller replica, signed by the painter himself, of the larger work executed in 1701 for his son, Philip V of Spain—a painting which was, however, kept back at Versailles and is now in the Louvre.
Hyacinthe Rigaud was considered a great portrait-painter and many personages of note gave him commissions. There is also a fine portrait at Chantilly by his younger contemporary and follower, Largillière, of Mademoiselle Duclos, a celebrated tragédienne who made her début at the Comédie Française in 1683. She is here portrayed in the rôle of Ariane (Salle Caroline), and her sumptuous robes are painted with all the care and minuteness so characteristic of this artist. These qualities are again displayed in a portrait of the Princess Palatine, Charlotte Elizabeth, second wife of Philippe d’Orléans and mother of the Regent. In this portrait Largillière shows his highest talents, and had it not been for the fact that “Liselotte” (although already middle-aged) followed the taste of her time by permitting herself to be painted as a Naiad this would perhaps have been one of the most faithful likenesses of this interesting princess.
Largillière resided for many years in England and studied for some time under Sir Peter Lely. On his return to Paris he was taken up by Charles Le Brun. His style belongs as much to the seventeenth as to the eighteenth century. Elegance and luxury, and a touch of serenity prevail in all his portraits. Mariette was greatly struck by his personal vigour and tells us that he went on working even up to his eighty-sixth year. Although too often over-exuberant he generally succeeded in imparting to his patrons great liveliness of aspect, and they live still, clad in their most sumptuous apparel. Such is the portrait of the elegant “Unknown”134 at Chantilly, once in the Collection at the Palais Bourbon; from which circumstance we may suppose that the sitter was some intimate friend of the Condé family.
By Jean Marc Nattier there is at Chantilly a life-size portrait of Mademoiselle Nantes, daughter of Louis XIV by Madame de Montespan, and wife of the Duc de Bourbon, grandson of the Grand Condé. Her daughter Louise Henriette, who married the Prince de Bourbon Conti, was also painted by Nattier135; and by the same artist—one of his best works—is the above-mentioned portrait of Charlotte Elizabeth Soubise,136 the young wife of Louis Joseph, Prince de Condé, represented plucking carnations in the gardens at Chantilly.
Nattier’s portraits of the Royal Family of Bourbon, both in the Louvre and at Versailles, are very numerous. He painted every one of Louis XV’s daughters137 and many other fair women, who, however, bear a strong general resemblance to one another, whereby his portraits are often rendered conventional and monotonous.
It is therefore rather refreshing to turn from Jean Nattier to Desportes and Oudry, who both stand on the threshold of the eighteenth century and who revived realistic landscape painting—an art which had practically lain dormant since the days of Pol de Limbourg; for Claude Lorraine and the Poussins had directed it into wholly diverse channels. Briados and Balthazar, two Spanish hounds formerly belonging to the House of Condé, are exquisitely painted by Desportes, who was highly thought of by all lovers of the chase and was a constant guest at the hunting-parties held in the various French châteaux. A painting by him in the Louvre representing a Huntsman with his dog and bag of game standing in a fine landscape shows his skill at its very best.
Oudry’s compositions come very near those of Desportes: for example, his Chasse du Loup and Chasse du Renard at Chantilly, both of which are noted in the Inventory of the Palais Bourbon. Oudry was encouraged by Largillière to take up decoration also, which he did with conspicuous success. He was admitted into the Academy in 1699, and being appointed to the Directorship of the Tapestry Factory at Beauvais instilled new life into that interesting branch of art, which had sadly decayed under the direction of Charles Le Brun’s imitators. His graceful talent shows itself in certain exquisite designs from La Fontaine’s Fables executed in tapestry at this factory. His favourite abode was the forest around Chantilly; and there he spent much time in painting animals direct from nature. By insisting that his ideas should be accurately transcribed he trained the weavers at Beauvais with much care, thus preparing the way for Boucher, the decorative genius of the next generation. A splendid Gobelins tapestry, executed after a cartoon by Boucher, adorns one side of the Grand Staircase at Chantilly. It represents a young woman seated in a garden to whom a boy and girl are offering fruit and flowers. On the opposite wall there is another tapestry from the workshop of Audran, executed after de Troy.
A copy in this collection (intended for the purposes of an engraving) by Boucher of a portrait of Watteau by himself is not devoid of interest; but it is in the Louvre, at Versailles, and above all in the Wallace Collection, rather than at Chantilly, that we derive a clear idea of Boucher’s light and graceful style. His Sunrise and Sunset on the staircase of Hertford House are considered to be among the finest of his creations. Madame de Pompadour, who was his enthusiastic patroness, frequently sat to him in a variety of attitudes; although his great talent was not portraiture, but decorative work, whereby he marks a decidedly new phase in French Art.
After an exceptionally long reign Louis XIV had at last passed away. He had asserted himself as strongly in Art as he had done in politics and it is worthy of note that, immediately after his death, artists were once more able to take their own independent courses. At this point, therefore, in the history of French Art we come upon a somewhat sudden change, visible also in the art of the cabinet-maker and the decorator. The later Bourbon Kings and Queens left their gorgeous salons and took refuge (with evident personal relief) in smaller and homelier chambers. These less imposing apartments, however, also required suitable decoration and serviceable furnishings: and it was here that Boucher found his opportunity. The boudoir with its delicate colouring and elegant upholstery played a significant rôle under the reigns of Maria Leczinska and Marie Antoinette, and the petits appartements at Versailles became examples of a new style. Paintings on a smaller scale suitable for these graceful bonbonnières were soon in demand; and from these it was but a step to the taste of Watteau, who is perhaps the most typical artist of this period. Plaisir Pastoral, l’Amante Inquiète, and l’Amour Désarmé at Chantilly are fine examples of this artist’s work. Le Donneur des Sérénades in the Musée Condé, of which there is a similar composition at Buckingham Palace belongs to his later period, that is to say, to the last five years of his life. This work is said to represent Mezetin (one of the leading actors at the Comédie Italienne established at the Hôtel du Bourgogne) seated on a bench in a classic garden tuning his guitar. The Amante Inquiète, which forms a pendant to this picture, is of equal merit. Everything in these small paintings is refined and elegant, even to Nature herself—a style far more typical of Watteau, than the scenes of camp-life which mark his stay at Valenciennes in 1709. A study in red chalk of a Warrior, preserved in the Rotunda at Chantilly, recalls this period. In his sketches, of which a great number are in the Louvre, Watteau exhibits his talent as a draughtsman of the highest order and as a worthy pupil of Claude Gillot, the earliest creator of the style for which Watteau became so famous. His relations with Crozat, the famous financier and collector, who was the first to recognise his genius, began in 1612, and it was in his palace that he had an opportunity of studying paintings by the great Venetian masters and landscapes by Rubens, both of which so decidedly influenced his subsequent style. There are exquisite pictures by him in the Louvre and in the Wallace Collection. His Ball under the Colonnade at Dulwich is very famous.
Lancret was a younger contemporary of Watteau, and observing his success adopted his style; without, however, attaining to his eminence. His Déjeuner de Jambon in the Galerie des Peintures at Chantilly presents a company of merry-makers on the point of becoming riotous; and opposite to it hangs a companion picture by de Troy entitled Le Déjeuner d’Huîtres. The host in this latter composition—a figure dressed in scarlet—is probably a Prince of the House of Orleans presiding at a feast in the Palais Royal. Many of the guests represented are said to be personages well known in their day: for King Louis Philippe was still able to distinguish them by name. They are certainly enjoying their oysters and iced champagne; and the satisfaction of the well-fed is clearly exhibited in their features and gestures.
Together with this group of artists mention must be made of Christophe Huet, designer and decorator of the Grande Chinoiserie at Chantilly. These decorations in a style so much in vogue in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were once attributed to Watteau, Gillot, Oudry, and others until an Account, dated 1741, was found in the Archives of Chantilly disclosing the name of Christophe Huet. They cover the panels of the so-called “Salon des Singes.” Scenes and episodes from the chase and the tea-party, architectural effects and other subjects, all are carried out in a pseudo-Chinese style. Apes clad in Condé uniforms and carrying flags act as outriders or grooms under the direction of grim-looking mandarins robed in gorgeous Oriental apparel. Besides the decorations here there is on the ground floor of the Château a “Petite Singerie” decorated in very much the same style: humorous scenes, wherein female monkeys are riding or occupied with their toilet. Jean Baptiste Huet, son of this Christophe, was also repeatedly commissioned by Prince Louis Joseph de Condé to paint pictures of his favourite animals.
The celebrated painter of pastels, Latour, is represented at Chantilly by a portrait of Madame Adelaide de France, daughter of Louis XV. His portraits, now recognised as even superior to those of Boucher and Lancret, are fine studies of character, but they are very rare. The pastel of the handsome Marie Fel, an opera-singer from Bordeaux by whom this artist was befriended, is very celebrated; and a group of portraits at St. Quentin place him in the foremost rank of French portrait-painters. His pre-eminent talents have been fully recognised by modern students of the French School.
His contemporary, Peronneau—till recently known chiefly as an engraver of the works of Boucher, Van Loo, and others—is now known to be the artist who painted a charming Portrait of a Girl in the Louvre and other pastels. Rosalba Carriera’s great success in that medium is also well known. The young King Louis XV, the Regent, and many other important personages were painted by her, and in her time she put into the shade both Latour and Peronneau.
Duplessis brings us to the time of the Revolution, when ruin fell upon so many of the artists of that day. His portrait of the Duchesse de Chartres, mother of Louis Philippe and grandmother of the Duc d’Aumale, is at Chantilly. She is seated in a garden, lost in profound sorrow at the departure of her husband to a naval engagement, symbolised by a ship disappearing in the distance: a refined and graceful presentation of a charming woman capable of winning the hearts of all around her. The portraits of Louis XVI and of the Comte de Provence by this painter in the Musée Condé are considered to be among the best likenesses of the last Bourbon Kings. Duplessis held the post of Administrator of the Galleries at Versailles.
Greuze, like Watteau, marked out a special line of his own; and with him French bourgeois Art reappears once more. His domestic scenes were described by Diderot as follows: “Cet artist est le premier entre nous qui se soit avisé de donner des murs dans l’art.” This remark applies to his Malédiction Paternelle, l’Accordée du Village, etc.
His charming Portrait of a Young Girl in a little cap at Chantilly represents Georgette, daughter of his concierge in Paris; and she can be recognised again in the same artist’s l’Accordée du Village in the Louvre, and perhaps also in the painting of a Young Girl winding Wool, lately added to Mr. Pierpont Morgan’s Collection. The pendant to Georgette in the Musée Condé is a portrait of a Young Boy, her brother. These two paintings, together with Le Tendre Desir, belong to the artist’s best period, whilst La Surprise is a work of his old age. This last work exhibits to us the curious fact that a problem which had steadily pursued him throughout his long life—namely, how to paint the first awakenings of love in a maiden’s mind—still puzzled him at the age of nearly eighty. It is certainly an irony of fate that after a romantic attachment to a young Italian Countess—whose portrait he painted, but whom he was prevented from marrying—he should have returned to Paris, to become the husband of a woman much older than himself, who presently made his life almost unendurable. It was perhaps the memory of this youthful idyll which induced him to paint so often those young maidens whose faces smile at us from the walls of so many Galleries throughout Europe. The Young Woman in a Hat in the Wallace Collection is perhaps the most fascinating of them all, since nothing can surpass the grace and piquancy of expression in her lovely countenance.
Greuze was in high favour with the Royal Family, and it is believed that he painted a portrait of the Dauphin at the Tuileries after the unfortunate flight to Varennes, and another of his elder sister, Madame Royale, when in the Temple. The great upheaval of the Revolution struck Greuze also, and as a painter he became no longer the fashion. His wife squandered his fortune and he died in poverty, slaving to the very last.
The portraits at Chantilly of Marie Antoinette (in 1795) and of Madame de Pompadour, two of the loveliest women of their day, are by Drouais, a pupil of Van Loo and Boucher. The happy days of Trianon were not yet over when these were painted, and the Dauphine of France, presented here as Hebe, seems to be at the height of her glory and charms. How different to the careworn and haggard woman whose portrait hangs in the Musée Carnevalet over the very bed occupied by her in the Temple before her execution!
Madame Vigée Le Brun carried the style of Greuze, at one time her master, into the middle of the nineteenth century. She is represented in the Musée Condé (Cabinet Clouet) by several small portraits: Marie Caroline, Queen of Naples, painted in 1768, and her two daughters, Marie Thérèse Caroline, wife of Francis II Emperor of Austria, and Marie Louise Josephine, wife of the Grand Duke of Tuscany. Whilst the first two of these appear to be copies of already existing pictures the portrait of Marie Louise Josephine, Queen of Etruria, shows special merits and seems to be taken directly from life, probably during one of Madame Le Brun’s tours in Italy. A strong vitality is expressed in her beautiful face, forming a marked contrast to the portrait of her mother, the Queen of Naples. Madame Le Brun, who, in spite of her sex became a member of the French Academy, was one of Marie Antoinette’s favourite painters. After the Revolution she established herself in St. Petersburg and did not return to Paris until 1801, when she was enthusiastically welcomed. She painted many of the most celebrated beauties of her day, but all these portraits seem to bear the mark of a period then fast disappearing.
Louis Joseph de Bourbon, about 1787, commissioned Fragonard to paint small portraits of the Princes and Princesses of the Royal House138 of Bourbon and the House of Bourbon Condé. Among these are portraits of the Dauphin Louis, son of Louis XVI, and of the Duc d’Enghien by whose tragic death the Condé family became extinct. Fragonard was a pupil of both Boucher and Chardin. He went to Italy with the Prix de Rome and in 1765 was elected a member of the Academy. He excelled in every style of painting—genre, landscape, portraits, interiors, and historical subjects. When in 1765 he exhibited his Callirhoé and Corésus (a subject taken from the poet Roy) Diderot and Grimm thought for a moment that he might resuscitate the art of historical painting in France. This picture was bought by King Louis XV but was never paid for, and Fragonard returned to his portrait-painting, which he accomplished with very great brilliance and rapidity. There is a series of these portraits in the La Caze section of the Louvre, chiefly representing the actors and actresses of his day. His remarkable talent for decorative painting reveals itself in certain designs destined for Madame Du Barry’s pavilion, but stupidly condemned by her advisers. When the Revolution broke out, the artist fled to Grasse to escape imprisonment and the scaffold taking these paintings with him, and there completed the series by a fifth composition. The whole set are now in the collection of the late Mr. J. F. Pierpont Morgan.
Fragonard in some of his work rose to the level of Watteau and he certainly surpassed Boucher: but, like Greuze, he suffered the humiliation of seeing himself pass out of fashion, supplanted by the rising sun of Louis David.
It certainly is to be regretted that Fragonard was not also commissioned to paint the above-mentioned life-size portrait of Louis Joseph de Bourbon at the Musée Condé. This privilege was given to a Madame de Tott, an artist quite unknown in the history of Art. She was a contemporary of Bartolozzi, who engraved her picture, and thus handed down her name to posterity; for we read upon it, “Madame de Tott pinxit—Bartolozzi sculpsit.”
Louis Petit, another indifferent painter of the same period, executed a portrait of the last Prince de Conti in hunting costume. This Prince left France with his Orleans cousins during the Revolution and died in Spain. To the same artist is attributed the portrait of Louis Henri de Bourbon, Duc d’Enghien. He has an interesting face, recalling that of his ancestor the Great Condé, but there is a touch of melancholy in his expression, telling of adversity endured and apparently foreshadowing his tragic death. His father, the last Prince de Condé, who during the French Revolution lived chiefly in England, was painted by Danloux, a Frenchman who had also sought shelter on the hospitable shores of Great Britain. This Prince is here represented as leader of the Condé forces, that is, of the French émigrés; and we can detect the influence of Reynolds and Gainsborough in the light, harmonious colouring of the composition, which was bought by the Duc d’Aumale from a descendant of Robert Claridge, in whose house the last Condé lived during his exile.
By Charles Vernet, son of the celebrated marine painter Joseph Vernet, there is at Chantilly a large landscape with a hunting scene. It was painted during the Directoire, and Philippe Egalité and his son the Duc de Chartres (afterwards Louis Philippe) may be distinguished in the foreground. Charles Vernet delighted in depicting horses and scenes of sport, a style rendered even more famous by his son Horace Vernet. There are no less than four pictures by the latter in the Musée Condé: The Duc d’Orleans (Louis Philippe) asking for hospitality from the Monks of St. Bernard; a portrait of Louis Philippe, while still Duc d’Orléans; Le Parlementaire et le Medjeles, in which the various Algerian types are represented in glowing colours; and Louis Philippe entering the gates of Versailles attended by his sons. This latter is a reduced copy by Perrault of the large original at Versailles, painted to commemorate the occasion when Louis Philippe handed over the Palace of Versailles, with all its treasures of art and historical reminiscences, to the French Nation as a Public Museum.
We now come to an artist whose place is upon the threshold of the nineteenth century—namely, Pierre Prudhon. A sketch of a Venus at Chantilly is a study for the picture Venus and Adonis, which made his name at the Salon of 1812. Most fascinating are Le Sommeil de Psyché, Homage à Beauté, and a sketch139 of Joseph and Potiphar’s Wife: elegant and graceful creations recalling the style of Greuze; who in point of fact admired his work greatly, and said of him, “This man will go farther than I have done.” David and his set contemptuously designated him as the “Boucher of to-day”; but Napoleon commissioned him to paint portraits of both his Empresses, Josephine and Marie Louise, and conferred upon him the Cross of the Legion of Honour.
For his own portrait the Emperor chose his official painter, Gérard, who was at that time considered so great an exponent of this branch of art that he was styled “the painter of kings” and “the king of painters.” Napoleon is represented by him as First Consul; and the expressive eyes, the mouth displaying power to command and the broad forehead partially concealed by a mass of hair, recall the great Roman whom he emulated and with whom he loved to be compared. The painter, no doubt, purposely accentuated in this portrait such facial resemblances as he was able. This commission was executed at the Tuileries in 1803.
At the Fall of the Empire Gérard was presented by Talleyrand to Louis XVIII; and later still in 1820 Louis Philippe commissioned him to paint a portrait of the Duchesse d’Orléans (afterwards Queen Marie Amélie) in a white robe adorned with pearls. This painting was highly treasured by the Duc d’Aumale, who out of filial affection hung it above his bed, where it still remains.
Another portrait by Ary Scheffer of the same royal lady as a widow is also here. This was painted at Claremont during the exile of the Orleans family; and by the same artist is a portrait of the Duc d’Orléans, Louis Philippe’s eldest son, who met with an untimely end in a carriage accident. But Ary Scheffer’s chef d’œuvre at Chantilly is a portrait of Talleyrand, the most renowned and brilliant man of the Revolution,—a painting bequeathed to the Duc d’Aumale by his friend Lord Holland.
Ary Scheffer’s greatest pupil was Puvis de Chavannes, who far surpassed his master in the art of exquisite line—a characteristic especially noticeable in his painting of Ste. Geneviève in the Pantheon, where he shows us the Patron Saint of Paris watching over her beloved city; and again in another painting of St. Mary Magdalen at Frankfort. This artist is unfortunately not represented at Chantilly; nor is Jacques Louis David, whose vast canvases, the Sacre et l’Intronisation de l’Empereur and La Distribution des Aigles, are so conspicuous in the Louvre. In spite of the comments of Diderot—who very wisely pointed out that the chief aim of the ancients was to reproduce Nature and that those who merely copied archaic painters were doing just the reverse of those whom they were trying to imitate,—public taste followed David and discarded their former favourites, Greuze and Watteau.
Ingres, David’s pupil, is represented at Chantilly by some of his finest work. There is in the first place His Own Portrait painted at the age of twenty-four—a fine work, grand in its very simplicity—which Prince Napoleon always desired to possess and which the artist could hardly refuse to present to him. It passed thence into the possession of Reiset in 1868 and eventually in 1879 became the property of the Duc d’Aumale.
A most impressive picture is Stratonice (Tribune), painted for the Duc d’Orléans, who desired it as a pendant for Delaroche’s Assassination of the Duc de Guise. It was painted at the Villa Medici in Rome, where it aroused great enthusiasm. His princely patron generously gave him 63,000 francs for it, which was double the price agreed upon.
Another greatly admired composition by him at Chantilly is a Venus Anadyomène, which bears close affinity to the famous La Source in the Louvre.
The genius of Paul Delaroche brings us into the nineteenth century. His style has been characterised as the juste milieu; for he neither affected the manner of the Neo-Classics nor did he lean too much toward the Romantics. Never was a cowardly and dastardly murder better depicted than in his treatment of the Assassination of Henri, Duc de Guise. The King, Henri III, pale and trembling, emerges from behind a curtain to gaze upon his slaughtered victim, whilst the hired assassins gloat over their ghastly deed. This picture, which hangs in the Tribune, was painted by Delaroche specially for the Duc d’Orléans.
We now come to Eugène Delacroix, who, in company with Gericault, is considered as the pioneer of Romanticism. His Capture of Constantinople by the Crusaders at Chantilly is a vividly composed representation of this important event. The Two Foscari (Tribune) depicts one of the greatest tragedies in Venetian history. The Doge Francesco Foscari is shown to us sitting in judgment upon his own son, whom he is condemning to torture and banishment as a traitor to his country. The anguish of the son and the stern despair of the old father are suggested with wonderful skill. Delacroix’s greatest efforts were, however, directed against the paralysing influences of Academism; and his paintings in the Palais Bourbon and in the Galerie d’Apollon in the Louvre prove him to have been the finest colourist of the later French School.
Another artist of the Romantic School is Descamps, who is represented at Chantilly by no less than ten paintings and several water-colours. Amongst these a Turkish Landscape, painted during the artist’s early period, is perhaps the most attractive. On one side of the picture all is mystery and darkness, whilst upon the other fall the rays of a golden sunset. The problems of light and shade, to which he devoted himself so earnestly up to the very end of his career, are here treated with great effect. The same idea pervades his painting of Turkish Guards on their way from Smyrna to Magnesia. A town with minarets is to be seen in the background; a dark blue sky flecked with luminous white clouds; camels and their riders; all breathing that dreamy oriental sensation which appealed to him so strongly, and which he was never weary of reproducing.
Eugène Fromentin, who was as celebrated as a writer as he was as a painter, is represented in the Musée Condé by one of his finest landscapes. Transported to the Marshes of Medeah, a country so well described by him in his book Un Éte dans le Sahara, we see in the foreground three Bedouin chiefs, mounted on splendid Arab steeds, engaged in hawking. The atmosphere is transparent and clear, refreshed as it were by a recent shower, and the sky is flecked by white clouds. This artist, who died in 1876, was one of the most accomplished men of his time.
By his contemporary Meissonier there are several paintings at Chantilly; the most important being Les Cuirassiers de 1805 avant le Combat. The moment is just before a projected attack; and the look of strained expectation upon the faces of the combatants is admirably expressed. Napoleon, surrounded by his staff, is easily recognised; and in the varying expressions of the long line of horsemen we perceive looks of determination to win or die. The reproach made by Mauclair to Meissonier that his style suffered from lack of originality and was copied from Dutch artists, if sometimes well founded, may at any rate be questioned by this picture. His La Vedette des Dragons sous Louis XV, though small in dimensions, is another important historical picture, whilst Les Amateurs des Tableaux recalls a similar composition in the Wallace Collection.
Meissonier’s best pupil was Jean Baptiste Detaille, the famous painter of battle-pieces. There is a picture of his at Chantilly entitled Les Grenadiers à cheval à Eylau,140 where a gallant French officer with the cry “Haut les Têtes” leads his regiment on to victory. This is one of the chef d’œuvres of this artist, whose recent death is so much to be deplored.
Of quite a different nature are the allegorical paintings of P. J. Aimé Baudry. The excellence of this master lies principally in decoration, as may be seen by his Vision of St. Hubert in the Galerie des Cerfs; and he may be considered one of the most talented of the French artists who flourished during the second half of the nineteenth century.
Winterhalter, who, although a native of Baden, acquired his artistic education in Paris and Rome, was one of the Court Painters to both Louis Philippe and Napoleon III. His portrait of the Duc d’Aumale at the age of eighteen, as Commander of his regiment before his victorious campaign in Algiers, is at Chantilly; and there is here also a companion portrait of the Duchesse as a young bride. She is clad in white, with a single rose in her fair hair, and her face is full of refinement and delicacy.
Landscape-painting in France at the beginning of the nineteenth century had undeniably become conventional and tame; but quite suddenly this stagnant condition came to an end, and a revolution set in, caused by the exhibition of Constable’s paintings The Hay Wain and A View near London in the Paris Salon of 1827. These pictures, purchased and exhibited in Paris by a French connoisseur, created intense interest in the French World of Art; and it is alleged that they were the immediate cause whereat French artists suddenly emerged from the studios wherein they had lingered so long and proceeding to the woods of Fontainebleau, began working from Nature herself. They awoke to recognise their own defects, already denounced by Chateaubriand, who had declared that French landscape-painters ignored Nature.
Throughout the studios French artists warmly discussed the work of Constable, upon whom Charles X, at their special desire, conferred the Médaille d’Or; and it was suggested that the Charette (The Hay Wain, now in the National Gallery) should be acquired by the French Nation.
S. W. Reynolds, Constable’s friend and pupil, whose exquisite little picture of the Pont de Sèvres hangs in the Tribune at Chantilly, at this time also removed to Paris in order to satisfy the general demand for engravings of his master’s works.
But if the Barbizon School owed much to Constable, it is also certain that Constable and Wilson owed an equal debt to Claude Lorraine; and Turner perhaps even more so.
By Corot there is but one painting at Chantilly, but it is one of his finest works. Everything in this picture breathes a spirit of peace and joy; the sky, the earth and the graceful young women—one of whom is playing a viola and another singing, whilst their companions listen or are plucking fruit—give a cheerful note to this vision of content.
It is styled Le Concert Champêtre141 and recalls his series of paintings entitled Souvenir d’Italie. Corot appears to have commenced his studies in the woods at Fontainebleau even before Millet, Rousseau and Diaz, so that he may fairly be styled the doyen of the now famous Barbizon School.
By his pupil A. P. C. Anastasi there are several landscapes at the Musée Condé, one of which represents Amsterdam at Eventide.
That Millet is absent from this collection is much to be regretted; but by Theodore Rousseau there are several landscapes, small in point of size, but nevertheless exhibiting this artist at his best; as for example, Le Crépuscule en Sologne and Fermes en Normandie. Ary Scheffer was the first artist to understand and befriend Rousseau when he started away on lines of his own, and it was through the kind offices of this painter that one of his first pictures was bought by the Duc d’Orléans. His landscapes in Auvergne are early works; and those painted at Barbizon—such as the pictures above named—are later and more finished achievements.
Dupré, by whom there are three early works, Port St. Nicholas, Paris and Le Soleil Couchant, accompanied Rousseau in 1841 to the neighbourhood of Monsoult, where they were frequently visited by Barye, Corot, and Daubigny. There is at Chantilly by this last artist a sketch of the Château de St. Cloud, a charming record of a spot full of memories, now no more. By Diaz de la Pena, the last of this group of painters, there is a wreath of flowers and birds painted in vivid colours upon the ceiling in the boudoir of the Petit Château once used by the Duchesse d’Aumale; and by Ziem (known as the “Painter of Venice”) there is a landscape, Les Eaux Douces d’Asie, a subject magnificently treated by Diaz in a composition now in the Wallace Collection. Monticelli, Diaz’s greatest pupil, the leading painter of the Second Empire and a great admirer of the Empress Eugenie, is unfortunately not represented here; nor are there any examples of the early French Impressionists. For here the Hand of Death intervened.
With Léon Bonnat’s fine portrait of the Duc d’Aumale our description of the paintings at Chantilly comes to an end; but attention should yet be drawn to various pieces of sculpture exhibited in the apartments of the Château, on the terraces, in the gardens and in the Park. A fine figure of Jeanne d’Arc by Chapu is in the Rotunda, whilst a group of Pluto and Proserpine plucking daffodils by the same sculptor is on the Great Terrace. Here also is the equestrian statue of the Grand Montmorency by Dubois; and not far from it a life-size figure of the Grand Condé by Coysevox, surrounded by busts of Bossuet, La Bruyère, Molière and Le Nôtre. Copies in marble from the antique and the renaissance adorn the niches and plinths of the mansion and the avenues of the Park. A figure of St. Louis by Marqueste surmounts the roof of the Chapel and Jean Goujon’s reliefs ornament the Altar within. The famous portrait in wax of Henri IV is in the Galerie de Psyché; and busts in marble of the Grand Condé and of Turenne by Derbais, of Richelieu and of the last Princes of the House of Bourbon-Condé, are placed in the Cabinet des Livres and in various other rooms. Fine bronzes by Barye, Mène, Fremiet and Cain, adorn the mantel-pieces and consoles; whilst some exquisite enamel portraits by Limousin are exhibited in the Salle des Gardes.
Most interesting, and worthy of more than a passing notice, is the collection of Chantilly Porcelain, an industry founded in 1730 by the Duc de Bourbon. A set of porcelain made at that time was placed in the King’s Bedroom.142
In the centre of the Galerie des Peintures stands a fine bust of the Duc d’Aumale by Dubois, and in the Marble Hall lies his recumbent figure in full uniform by the same artist, a cast143 of the marble figure upon his tomb in the Cathedral at Dreux.
And so with the death of the man his work came to a close. But his genius as a collector has furnished France with one of the finest Homes of Art in the World; and she does well to remember with gratitude this scion of the Bourbon race, who stretched out his hand to expiate much. Every lover of Art throughout the world, and every wayfarer who in his wanderings finds his way to Chantilly, may well stand amazed at this collection and praise its creator. Nor in passing out should he fail to give a last glance at the silent effigy: a glance in which gratitude should be mingled with that emotion which ever holds the thoughtful spectator of departed greatness.
Footnotes
1 This last-named castle has also been bequeathed to the French nation by its owner.
2 The grandfather of Henri II de Bourbon, husband of the fair Charlotte de Montmorency.
3 When the Cardinal de Lorraine, her uncle, suggested to the young Queen this marriage as political salvation for himself, she exclaimed ironically, “Truly I am beholden to my uncle. So that it be well with him, he careth not what becometh of me.”
5 According to Brantôme, the Duc d’Anjou was inconsolable after her death and for a long time wore deepest mourning for her.
7 See p. 10 et seq.
8 Journal historique et anecdote de la Cour et de Paris.
9 Octave Homberg et Fernand Jousselin.
11 Called in Germany “Allerheim” to distinguish it from the battle of Nördlingen, where the Archduke Ferdinand was victorious over Bernard of Weimar in 1434.
12 This stone table is still used as a rendezvous de chasse by the Duc and Duchesse de Chartres.
13 He, however, was generally known not as Prince de Condé but as Duc de Bourbon or Monsieur le Duc.
14 This brought enormous benefits to the Crown, but was the cause of the famine in 1768.
15 “Histoire de Chantilly pendant la Revolution,” par M. Alexandre Sorel.
16 The Château d’Enghien, built in 1770, was chiefly used for the attendants and suites of the illustrious guests who came to Chantilly.
17 See p. 8.
18 A sketch for the well-known picture of that Saint in the National Gallery.
19 There is a certain affinity between this picture and the portrait in the National Gallery which is said to represent Ariosto.
20 The other is the Madonna del Connestabile now in the Hermitage.
22 Der Breslauer Froissart von Arthur Lindner. (Berlin, 1912.)
23 A drawing of which is in the British Museum.
24 Bernhard Berenson, A Sienese Painter of the Franciscan Legend. (Burlington Magazine, 1903).
25 See Plate XXIII.
27 Dear and Royal Brother, I have just read your appreciative words about me. I write to you with emotion. You are a prince by birth and have become a man. For me your Royalty has ceased to be political and is now historical; my Republican conviction is not disturbed by it. You have contributed to the greatness of France. And I love you.
29 Louis Dimier, Les Portraits peints de François I.
30 This interesting picture was painted at Calais in 1396 on the occasion of the marriage between Richard II of England and Isabelle, daughter of the King of France.
31 The first volume of this MS. is in the British Museum, and the second with the miniatures of the Preux de Marignan in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.
32 Purgatorio, canto II, v. 80.
33 Closely allied to the Ingeburge Psalter, and likewise showing English influence, is the Arsenal MS., formerly at the Sainte-Chapelle, and executed for Blanche Castille, mother of St. Louis.
34 Cf. p. 168.
35 It was fortunate indeed that Comte Paul Durrieu had made a reproduction in phototype from the original Hours of Turin before they were burnt; for they were by far the most interesting part of the MS. Some of the miniatures have been attributed to Hubert van Eyck—namely that portion which in 1417 belonged to Count Hainau, who is himself represented in one of them arriving with his train on the shores of the North Sea, where his daughter Jaqueline and her attendant ladies are awaiting him.
36 See Plate XXVII.
37 “Une Salière d’agathe garnie d’or et de perles, laquelle salière l’artiste donna à monseigneur aux estraignes.”—Léon de Laborde, Glossaire, p. 367.
38 See Plate XXVIII.
39 Cf. p. 163.
40 See Plate XXIX.
42 See Plate XXXI.
43 See Plate XXXII.
44 See Plate XXXIII.
45 See Plate XXXIV.
46 See Plate XXXV.
47 Masaccio (born in 1401), it is believed, could not have painted the frescoes at San Clemente before 1417; perhaps even, considering his age, rather later.
48 M. de Mely, Gazette des Beaux Arts, 1912.
49 Durrieu mentions that one of the Kings seems to have been inspired by this medal, but as a matter of fact he is faithfully copied from it.
50 See Plate XXXVIII.
51 See Plate XXXIX.
52 It was in this castle that the Duc de Berry commissioned André Beauneveu, Pol Limbourg’s predecessor, to prepare for him a Book of Hours, subsequently completed with the assistance of Jacquemart de Hesdin. This MS., which contains a very characteristic portrait of the Duke himself, is now to be seen in the Library at Brussels. Beauneveu died in 1413, two years before the Brothers Limbourg appeared upon the horizon of French Art.
[53] See Plate XXVI.
54 Also called Heures d’Ailly, after its former owners.
55 Probably the figure to the right drawn full face, for it bears an unmistakable resemblance to Fouquet’s Portrait of Himself in the Louvre, executed in enamel.
56 Cf. The Romance of a Book, by Yates Thomson (Burlington Magazine, 1906).
58 See Plate LXI.
59 See Plate XLII.
60 See Plate XLIII.
61 See Plate XLIV.
63 We find this composition also in Duccio’s famous altarpiece at Siena.
64 All Saints’ Day. See Plate XLVIII.
65 Journal du voyage de Michel Montaigne, i. p. 17.
66 In the collection of Mr. Ayr in London.
67 M. Leprieur, Gazette des Beaux Arts, January 1911.
68 A contemporary monument in the Cathedral at Tours erected by Anne de Bretagne to the memory of these two little boys has assisted greatly in the identification of these portraits.
69 At the sale of the collection of Mr. Robert Hoe in New York there came to light another example of Bourdichon’s skill in the Hours of Anne de Beaujeu.
70 MS. 18014, Bibl. Nat. Paris.
71 There is a portrait of the same monarch in a MS. at The Hague (copied for Gaignières) to which is attached a note giving its date and the name of the artist as a certain Jean de Bruges, who according to M. B. Prost seems to be identical with Johannes Bandol pictor regis.
72 The three others, representing Edward III, Charles IV of Germany, and Charles, Duke of Normandy (afterwards Charles V of France), have unfortunately disappeared.
73 The Magi with the Portraits of Edward III and Queen Philippa as Donors.
74 History of Art in England (Burlington Fine Arts Club Exhibition, 1909).
75 Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.
76 A chef d’œuvre of French miniature-painting during the reign of Charles VIII (Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris).
78 Gazette des Beaux Arts, June 1907.
79 Louise M. Richter, Monatshefte für Kunstwissenschaft, July 1909.
82 See Plate XLIX.
83 Lettres de Louis XII, Nouvelle citè de l’Heptameron.
86 MS. Fr. 20,490, fo. 6. These autographs display elegance in handwriting; and one of them refers to a mission with which Perréal was entrusted by Anne de Beaujeu, wife of Pierre de Bourbon, to fetch back the diamonds which she had deposited with Madame du Plessis Bourré during the Civil War. The Court of Moulins at that time was known as a centre of art and literature under the auspices of the cultured daughter of Louis XI.
87 Among the drawings attributed to Fouquet the Papal Legate, formerly in the Heseltine Collection, is the best known.
88 Called “of Navarre” because he worked for Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre, sister of Francis I. The portrait of Louis de Saint-Gelais in the Louvre (1513-39), of which a drawing is in the British Museum, is attributed to him.
89 See Plate LIII.
90 Plusiers portraits et effigies au vif qu’il a faictes, Laborde, La Renaissance, p. 15.
91 Laborde, Comptes des Bâtiments, III, p. 237.
94 See Plate LXII.
95 Formerly in the Heseltine Collection.
96 I am indebted for this information to Sir Sidney Colvin.
97 See Plate LVII.
98 See Plate LVIII.
100 See Plate LXI.
101 See Plate LXII.
102 See Plate LXI.
103 See Plate LVII.
104 Cf. The Life of Benvenuto Cellini. A new version by Robert H. Hobart Cust (London: George Bell & Sons, 1910).
105 A town which formed part of her own dowry.
109 Admirable portraits of this same Sieur de Canaples, whose wife was one of the Petite Bande of Francis I, are in the British Museum (Salting Collection) and at the Albertina, Vienna.
111 See Plate LXI.
113 Collection Deligand, Paris.
114 G. Moreau Nélaton, Les Le Mannier.
115 See Frontispiece.
118 See Plate LXVIII.
120 See Plate LXXI, British Museum, Salting Collection.
121 See Plate VIII.
122 The painting in the Victoria and Albert Museum (Jones Collection) is also an echo of this same drawing.
123 See Plate LXVII.
124 The nephew of François Clouet, whose signature, Fulonis fecit, we find on some of the markedly weaker drawings of the Lecurieux album.
126 See Frontispiece.
127 Dimier, Bulletin de la Société Nationale de Antiquaires de France.
128 See Plate LXIX.
130 See Plate LXXI.
131 See Plate LXXII.
132 The late M. F. A. Gruyer recently presented to the Musée Condé a fine landscape by Claude Lorraine which hangs in the Salle de Minerve, and there are some excellent drawings by this master in the portfolios in the Salle Caroline.
134 See Plate LXXIII.
135 See Plate LXXIII.
137 These may be seen at Versailles.
138 These are exhibited in one of the rooms of the Petit Château.
139 See Plate LXXIV.
140 See Plate LXXVII.
141 See Plate LXXVIII.
142 There are several examples of Chantilly porcelain in the Victoria and Albert Museum.
143 See Plate LXXIX.