Tea at Trianon: “Madame Moitessier”

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

Monday, November 5, 2018

“Madame Moitessier”

Madame Moitessier was the aunt of Charles de Foucauld. From Joy of Museums:

“Madame Moitessier” by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres is a portrait of Marie-Clotilde-Inès Moitessier (née de Foucauld) begun in 1844 but not completed until twelve years later. Madame Moitessier (1821–1897) was the daughter of a French civil servant who married a wealthy banker and merchant, who was a widower twice her age. In this painting, she is shown wearing abundant jewellery and dressed in an elegant silk dress with a floral pattern, which is echoed by the flowers and leaves of the gilt-framed mirrors. Madame Moitessier is framed on either side by mirrors, and her profile reflection can be seen on the mirror on the right.

Ingres, who in the 1840’s was at the peak of his career, was initially reluctant to accept this portrait commission and refused her husband’s request for a portrait of his wife. However, when Ingres met Madame Moitessier, he was struck by her beauty and agreed to produce a portrait. The painting took twelve years to complete due to many interruptions in the artist’s and subject’s lives. Work on this canvas was suspended when the death of Ingres’ wife left him unable to work for many months, and later Madame Moitessier was unavailable due to pregnancy and subsequently the death of her father. More than seven years later, Ingres began afresh, painting a different portrait of the subject showing her standing in a dark dress. The standing picture is in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC and shows Madame Moitessier looking much more solemn. Ingres then returned to his first composition this seated portrait, which he completed in 1856. This seated portrait shows a smiling Madame Moitessier, compared to the standing portrait in the black dress is a much soberer portrait.

Ingres was a French Neoclassical painter who thought of himself as a painter of history and who today is highly regarded for his many portraits. Critics often found his style bizarre and archaic, his expressive distortions of form and space make him an important precursor of modern art, and his work influenced Picasso and Matisse and other modernists. (Read more.)