Tea at Trianon: "The Harvest" by Leprince

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Thursday, February 12, 2009

"The Harvest" by Leprince

February 13 being the anniversary of the assassination of the Duc de Berry at the Opera, I thought it was interesting that I came across this painting which had belonged to his wife, Caroline of Naples. The description of the painting mentions the novel Madame Royale, saying:

In The Harvest, a dog runs over a bridge towards the harvesters, giving a sense of urgency to the toil which must be completed before the impending storm breaks. The dark grey clouds are rolling in fast and the family of workers are hurriedly stacking the hay bale from the horse cart. Here, Auguste Xavier Leprince has chosen to depict rural labourers as the backbone of France under the Bourbon dynasty. The landscape is rich and plentiful; in a reflection of the idyllic and industrious farmers there is a chicken and her chicks feeding below the cart.

The Harvest was previously owned by Marie-Caroline of Bourbon-Sicily, Duchess de Berry. The works of Leprince were particularly appreciated by Charles X and the Duchess de Berry (1798-1870); the latter had several paintings by the artist in her collection. Marie-Caroline of Bourbon-Sicily had married Charles-Ferdinand d’Artois, Duke de Berry and the future Charles X, who was an important patron of the arts with a vast collection of paintings. The Duke de Berry married the young Princess Marie-Caroline of Bourbon-Sicily in 1816, when she was just 18. In the four years from then, until the Duke’s assassination, the couple had two children: a daughter, Louise; and son Henri, who became Duke de Bordeaux, then Count de Chambord. A painting of the Duchess with her children, dated 1822 is illustrated here (see fig.1 in exhibition cat.). The Duke and Duchess acquired the old castle of Sully in August, 1818, though they spent summers at the Elysée Palace. On 13 February, 1820, the Duc de Berry was murdered, apparently stabbed by a madman, on the steps of the Paris Opera whilst helping his pregnant wife into a carriage. The particulars of the assassination are told in the novel Madame Royale by Elena Maria Vidal (Neumann Press, 2000).