Lot Essay
This recently discovered early work is not only a rare commemorative picture by Vernet, but also provides an important link between French and German romanticism.
Vernet's oeuvre during the period of the Bourbon Restoration (1815-1830) often drew upon specific events from the Napoleonic Wars, such as The Death of Poniatowski (1817) and The Battle of Montmirail (1822). However, these pictures were rejected as being anti-royalist, by glorifying the Empire's successes. One of the most notorious examples was The Battle of Jemappes (1822), which was not permitted to be exhibited until 1831, following the 1830 revolution and Louis-Philippe's subsequent accession. At the Tomb of Colonel Monginot would have had a similar background, but as a private commemorative commission from Monginot's mother, combined with the overtly Napoleonic subject, it is unlikely to have been exhibited among the rejected works in his own studio in 1822, let alone to have reached the Salon viewing committee.
The stylized image of the weeping willow and mourning ladies before a tomb would have been drawn from popular engravings and woodcuts, using the standard vocabulary of this subject matter from the 16th Century onwards, employed by Bourbon and Napoleonic sympathizers, to mourn their respective heroes. Although other examples of this derivation exist, such as a drawing of The Monument to Colonel Moncey and The Monument to Joseph Poniatowski, a lithograph produced as a frontispiece to Le Troubadour français au Tombeau de Poniatowski (1815-1818), our work is a rare example of its application to a romantic narrative composition. The classicized tomb recalls the concept of La Madeleine, Napoleon's temple, decidated to the memory of the dead soldiers of the Campaigns and was the rhetoric of the period, in erecting monuments to grand army heroes. The poem on the reverse is written in this vein and is consistent with funerary inscriptions of the period:
Portes du temple de mémoire
ouvrez vous, il l'a mérité
il vecut assez pour la gloire
trop peu pour ma Félicité
Other symbols display the influence of German romanticism and, in particular, Caspar David Friedrich, the background of Dresden providing an apposite setting, as the centre of the movement. Various symbols emphasize the air of recent death, aside from the tomb and the willow. The moonlit scene (also recalling Girodet's Sleep of Endymion (1791)), the river, and the over-sized boat, soon to carry away the parting soul, were all images employed by Friedrich. An aquatint of 1809 of his sepia work View of Arkona with a rising Moon, by Benedikt Piringer, and published in Die Elegante Welt, displays these symbols. As Vernet was producing watercolours for similar fashion magazines from 1810-1818 he may have known of the image from this publication. Likewise, Friedrich's Chasseur in the Forest of 1813-14 may also have been known to him, the dragoon at the entrance to a wood, recalling Friedrich's French officer entering the unknown. Vernet has, however, reversed the political comment, the scene glorifying Monginot's achievements despite Napoleon's subsequent defeat at Leipzig. The inclusion of a horse (Colonel Monginot's(?)) is one of Vernet's only hallmarks within the picture and may relate to the theme of the horse's devotion in The Dead Bugler.
Colonel Marie-Fréderic Monginot of the 13th Dragoons died at Dresden at the age of 27, on 8th September 1813, as a result of woulds received at Pirna, near Gross-Beeren on 22nd August. His early death cut short a potentially brilliant career. His swift action at Eylau, where he saved the 18th infantry, won him membership of the Legion of Honour and the position of officer of the same order five years later. He was to lose an arm during the defeat of the French at Gross-Beeren, under Marshal Oudinot, and was unable to take part in Napoleon's victory at Dresden five days later.
The identity of the figures is unclear. The War Ministry's record of Monginot's career shows the officer to have died a bachelor and, therefore, the two ladies may have been his mother and sister/fiancée. The entry in Vernet's accounts of September 1817 'Reçu pour un dessin représentant un tombeau, Mme Mourginot (sic.)... 300 (francs)' probably refers to the mother's original commission; however, whether she visited Dresden cannot be determined.
Following the Emperor's defeat and subsequent retreat to France, French nationals could no longer openly visit the region. With this background, the French dragoon leads Monginot's family (?) to the tomb by moonlight, a great risk in the political circumstances. It is the underlying tension, masked by the serenity and mystical atmosphere of the scene, which establishes the picture as an extraordinary romantic statement for its early date. The combination of the symbols of earlier engravings with the atmospheric tone of the German romantics creates a mood which was one of the first expressions of French romanticism and, in Vernet's oeuvre, a precursor to his oeuvre of the 1820s and 1830s.
We are grateful to Professor Athanassoglou-Kallmyer for her assistance in preparing this catalogue entry.
Vernet's oeuvre during the period of the Bourbon Restoration (1815-1830) often drew upon specific events from the Napoleonic Wars, such as The Death of Poniatowski (1817) and The Battle of Montmirail (1822). However, these pictures were rejected as being anti-royalist, by glorifying the Empire's successes. One of the most notorious examples was The Battle of Jemappes (1822), which was not permitted to be exhibited until 1831, following the 1830 revolution and Louis-Philippe's subsequent accession. At the Tomb of Colonel Monginot would have had a similar background, but as a private commemorative commission from Monginot's mother, combined with the overtly Napoleonic subject, it is unlikely to have been exhibited among the rejected works in his own studio in 1822, let alone to have reached the Salon viewing committee.
The stylized image of the weeping willow and mourning ladies before a tomb would have been drawn from popular engravings and woodcuts, using the standard vocabulary of this subject matter from the 16th Century onwards, employed by Bourbon and Napoleonic sympathizers, to mourn their respective heroes. Although other examples of this derivation exist, such as a drawing of The Monument to Colonel Moncey and The Monument to Joseph Poniatowski, a lithograph produced as a frontispiece to Le Troubadour français au Tombeau de Poniatowski (1815-1818), our work is a rare example of its application to a romantic narrative composition. The classicized tomb recalls the concept of La Madeleine, Napoleon's temple, decidated to the memory of the dead soldiers of the Campaigns and was the rhetoric of the period, in erecting monuments to grand army heroes. The poem on the reverse is written in this vein and is consistent with funerary inscriptions of the period:
Portes du temple de mémoire
ouvrez vous, il l'a mérité
il vecut assez pour la gloire
trop peu pour ma Félicité
Other symbols display the influence of German romanticism and, in particular, Caspar David Friedrich, the background of Dresden providing an apposite setting, as the centre of the movement. Various symbols emphasize the air of recent death, aside from the tomb and the willow. The moonlit scene (also recalling Girodet's Sleep of Endymion (1791)), the river, and the over-sized boat, soon to carry away the parting soul, were all images employed by Friedrich. An aquatint of 1809 of his sepia work View of Arkona with a rising Moon, by Benedikt Piringer, and published in Die Elegante Welt, displays these symbols. As Vernet was producing watercolours for similar fashion magazines from 1810-1818 he may have known of the image from this publication. Likewise, Friedrich's Chasseur in the Forest of 1813-14 may also have been known to him, the dragoon at the entrance to a wood, recalling Friedrich's French officer entering the unknown. Vernet has, however, reversed the political comment, the scene glorifying Monginot's achievements despite Napoleon's subsequent defeat at Leipzig. The inclusion of a horse (Colonel Monginot's(?)) is one of Vernet's only hallmarks within the picture and may relate to the theme of the horse's devotion in The Dead Bugler.
Colonel Marie-Fréderic Monginot of the 13th Dragoons died at Dresden at the age of 27, on 8th September 1813, as a result of woulds received at Pirna, near Gross-Beeren on 22nd August. His early death cut short a potentially brilliant career. His swift action at Eylau, where he saved the 18th infantry, won him membership of the Legion of Honour and the position of officer of the same order five years later. He was to lose an arm during the defeat of the French at Gross-Beeren, under Marshal Oudinot, and was unable to take part in Napoleon's victory at Dresden five days later.
The identity of the figures is unclear. The War Ministry's record of Monginot's career shows the officer to have died a bachelor and, therefore, the two ladies may have been his mother and sister/fiancée. The entry in Vernet's accounts of September 1817 'Reçu pour un dessin représentant un tombeau, Mme Mourginot (sic.)... 300 (francs)' probably refers to the mother's original commission; however, whether she visited Dresden cannot be determined.
Following the Emperor's defeat and subsequent retreat to France, French nationals could no longer openly visit the region. With this background, the French dragoon leads Monginot's family (?) to the tomb by moonlight, a great risk in the political circumstances. It is the underlying tension, masked by the serenity and mystical atmosphere of the scene, which establishes the picture as an extraordinary romantic statement for its early date. The combination of the symbols of earlier engravings with the atmospheric tone of the German romantics creates a mood which was one of the first expressions of French romanticism and, in Vernet's oeuvre, a precursor to his oeuvre of the 1820s and 1830s.
We are grateful to Professor Athanassoglou-Kallmyer for her assistance in preparing this catalogue entry.