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Lot Essay
An autograph riccordo after the picture painted by Vincent for the 1779 Salon and now in the Assemblée Nationale, Paris, J. Locquin, La peinture d'histoire en France de 1747 à 1785, Paris, 1978, fig. 147. Another autograph riccordo of the picture, signed and dated 1779, is also in the Assemblée Nationale, J.-P. Cuzin, Franois-André Vincent, Paris, n.d., no. 34. Jean Locquin mentions a drawing of this subject which was exhibited at the Exposition annuelle de l'Association des artistes peintres in 1846, which may correspond with either.
Vincent painted another version of the composition for the Molé family which is now at Champlâtreux, J.-P. Cuzin, op. cit., p. 11.
The Fronde is the name given to the Civil War in France between 1648 and 1652, during the minority of King Louis XIV. The chief causes were the grievances of a coalition of the Parlement and the Grandees against Cardinal Mazarin.
The incident depicted in the present sheet took place in the rue de l'Arbre-Sec, Paris, on 27 August 1650, and was caused by the arrest, on the orders of the Regent Queen Anne of Austria, of Pierre Broussel and several other members of the Parlement. Mathieu Molé, the President of the Parlement and one of the great figures of French parliamentary history, is shown returning from the Palais-Royal where he has unsuccessfully petitioned for the prisoners' release. He carries a mortar, symbol of his authority. As he passes a barricade he is seized by Raguenet, a steel merchant and leader of the mob, who demands that he return to remonstrate with Queen Anne of Austria, declaring 'Turn, traitor, unless you wish to be massacred, either by recovering Broussel, or bringing Mazarin as a hostage'. Some of Molé's companions fled, but he returned to the Palais-Royal and by his perseverance and oratory successfully demanded the liberation of the prisoners.
Vincent painted another version of the composition for the Molé family which is now at Champlâtreux, J.-P. Cuzin, op. cit., p. 11.
The Fronde is the name given to the Civil War in France between 1648 and 1652, during the minority of King Louis XIV. The chief causes were the grievances of a coalition of the Parlement and the Grandees against Cardinal Mazarin.
The incident depicted in the present sheet took place in the rue de l'Arbre-Sec, Paris, on 27 August 1650, and was caused by the arrest, on the orders of the Regent Queen Anne of Austria, of Pierre Broussel and several other members of the Parlement. Mathieu Molé, the President of the Parlement and one of the great figures of French parliamentary history, is shown returning from the Palais-Royal where he has unsuccessfully petitioned for the prisoners' release. He carries a mortar, symbol of his authority. As he passes a barricade he is seized by Raguenet, a steel merchant and leader of the mob, who demands that he return to remonstrate with Queen Anne of Austria, declaring 'Turn, traitor, unless you wish to be massacred, either by recovering Broussel, or bringing Mazarin as a hostage'. Some of Molé's companions fled, but he returned to the Palais-Royal and by his perseverance and oratory successfully demanded the liberation of the prisoners.