Description
Attributed to Jean Louis Ernest MEISSONIER (1815 - 1891 )Allegorical Figure of the RepublicCanvas81 x 57 cmOn a board with a monogram EM (old restorations) Provenance: Anonymous sale, Paris, Sotheby's, 25 June 2003, n° 90 (Meissonier); Galerie d'Orsay, ParisIn the aftermath of the 1848 Revolution, a competition for an allegorical figure of the Republic was organized to give the new regime an image embodying power and equality. Ernest Meissonier was chosen to be a member of the jury alongside Ingres, Delaroche, Cogniet and Delacroix. Among the many participants were Honoré Daumier, Hyppolite Flandrin and Jean-Léon Gérôme. Meissonier himself is said to have proposed a project: "the Republic holding an olive branch in one hand and the tricolour flag and a sword in the other". This project was described by the artist to his son-in-law in 1873 and reported in the journal Méquillet (family archives). The original idea of the blade entangled in the red fabric of the flag, assimilating it to the blood shed, and the treatment of the drapery are strongly reminiscent of Meissonier's style. The element sketched in the upper left of the painting would correspond to the olive branch described and would testify to the preparatory character of our painting. We can compare our painting with the Study of a Muse (panel, 27 x 18.5 cm) kept in the Musée des Beaux Arts in Lyon. See the catalogue of the Ernest Meissonier exhibition, Lyon, Musée des Beaux-Arts, 25 March - 27 June 1993, n° 103).
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Attributed to Jean Louis Ernest MEISSONIER (1815 - 1891 )Allegorical Figure of the RepublicCanvas81 x 57 cmOn a board with a monogram EM (old restorations) Provenance: Anonymous sale, Paris, Sotheby's, 25 June 2003, n° 90 (Meissonier); Galerie d'Orsay, ParisIn the aftermath of the 1848 Revolution, a competition for an allegorical figure of the Republic was organized to give the new regime an image embodying power and equality. Ernest Meissonier was chosen to be a member of the jury alongside Ingres, Delaroche, Cogniet and Delacroix. Among the many participants were Honoré Daumier, Hyppolite Flandrin and Jean-Léon Gérôme. Meissonier himself is said to have proposed a project: "the Republic holding an olive branch in one hand and the tricolour flag and a sword in the other". This project was described by the artist to his son-in-law in 1873 and reported in the journal Méquillet (family archives). The original idea of the blade entangled in the red fabric of the flag, assimilating it to the blood shed, and the treatment of the drapery are strongly reminiscent of Meissonier's style. The element sketched in the upper left of the painting would correspond to the olive branch described and would testify to the preparatory character of our painting. We can compare our painting with the Study of a Muse (panel, 27 x 18.5 cm) kept in the Musée des Beaux Arts in Lyon. See the catalogue of the Ernest Meissonier exhibition, Lyon, Musée des Beaux-Arts, 25 March - 27 June 1993, n° 103).
