GENERAL DESCRIPTION
During a music lesson, fourteen-year-old Louise Marie Adelaïde Eugénie de Bourbon d’Orléans, daughter of the Duc d’Orléans, plays a duet with her governess, Madame de Genlis. The other figure in this triple portrait is her English teacher, Mademoiselle Paméla, who turns pages at the music stand. In the background of this neoclassical interior is a bronze statue of Minerva, the Roman goddess of wisdom. She wears a Phrygian bonnet and holds a pike, which were symbols of the French Revolution. This imagery served a political purpose by distancing the Duc d’Orléans from the Bourbon monarchy in an attempt to avoid death by the guillotine, a fate suffered by many French nobles during the Revolution. By depicting the musical trio’s intelligence, talent, and dedication, the painter, Jean Antoine Théodore Giroust, fashioned the Duc d’Orléans and his family as supporters of liberal, Enlightenment values.
Excerpt from
Laura Sevelis, DMA label copy, 2015
NOTES
Created 1791
April 2015
Acquisition proposal pulled from TMS:
This remarkable life-size triple portrait by the neo-classical painter Jean Antoine Théodore Giroust created a sensation when it debuted at the Salon of 1791. Each of the three sitters would have been a well-known personality to the Salon audience, and the painting is an indelible document of the self-fashioning of the liberal French aristocracy under the National Assembly (1789-92).
At center, seated at her gilded harp, is the fourteen-year-old Louise Marie Adelaïde Eugénie d’Orléans (1777-1847). She was the third child and only surviving daughter of Louis Philippe Joseph de Bourbon, duc d’Orléans (1747-1793), head of the cadet branch of the French monarchy. To her right, likewise seated at a harp, is her governess, Stéphanie Félicité du Crest de Saint-Aubin, Comtesse de Genlis (1746-1830), an aristocratic woman who became famous as a novelist, educator, and indefatigable harpist. Unusually, Madame de Genlis had been entrusted with the education of the duc d’Orléans sons as well as his daughters, and she was the author of several progressive educational texts. The third woman, standing at left, is Mademoiselle Paméla (c. 1773-1831), who had been adopted by Madame de Genlis and raised as a companion to the d’Orléans children. She was possibly Madame de Genlis’s natural daughter, but was reported at the time to be an English orphan. She was named in honor of the 1740 novel Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded by English writer Samuel Richardson.
Giroust’s detailed representation of the sitters, their dress and accessories, and their elegant neoclassical furnishings testify to the efforts of the duc d’Orléans to craft a public image of his family and retinue as paragons of Enlightenment virtue and progressive cultural tastes. The painting was exhibited shortly after the royal family’s ill-fated attempt to flee France, after which they were brought back to Paris and imprisoned at the Temple. The duc d’Orléans, an enthusiastic supporter of the Revolution, was in the midst of a campaign to have himself declared regent in a new constitutional monarchy. By the following year, as the Revolution entered a more
radical phase, he rechristened himself “Philippe Egalité,” shedding his Bourbon name and aristocratic title, but his political makeover did not save him from being sent to the guillotine at the height of the Terror in 1793.
Antoine Giroust played an important role in d’Orléans political messaging in the early 1790s. He had been trained in the studio of the leading neo-classical painter, Joseph Marie Vien, alongside his contemporary Jacques-Louis David. Following study in Rome, Giroust was received as a full member of the Academy in 1789 with the painting Oedipus at Colonus (Dallas Museum of Art, Foundation for the Art Collection, Mrs. John B. O’Hara Fund, 1992.22.FA). By 1791, he was working almost exclusively for the duc d’Orleans, and in the years that followed his fortunes rose and fell with those of the d’Orléans family.
In 1792, Giroust volunteered for military service as an aide de camp to the duc de Chartres, the eldest son of Philippe Egalité and the future King Louis Philippe. After the duc d’Orléans and his sons were arrested by the Committee of Public Safety in April 1793, Giroust was able to escape to the countryside, where he lived for some years in relative obscurity, near his home town of Vivier. In 1795, Giroust was invited, perhaps at the behest of his former studio-mate David, to be one of the inaugural members of the newly created Institute, as a “non-resident” member since he remained in the countryside. He settled in the eastern province of Lorraine,
where by 1800 he was serving as mayor of the town of Serres. His final professional venture as an artist was the exhibition of two history paintings, Éponine et Sabinus and Sainte Godelive , at the Salon of the Year X (1802). Following this exhibition, Giroust largely returned to private life. He passed away in 1817 at his house in Vivier.
A full-size replica of The Harp Lesson was produced in 1842 by Jean-Baptise Mauzaisse (1784-1844) for King Louis Philippe, the brother of Mademoiselle d’Orleans. This replica remains in the historical gallery of Versailles (inv. no. MV 4531). It was once believed that the original canvas had been destroyed during the Revolution of 1848, when it was hanging in the Palais-Royal, but in fact the painting remained the property of the Bourbon Orléans family by descent from 1791 until 1937, when it was sold in Brussels as a “school of David” painting and was acquired by a Belgian collector, Baron Robert Gendebien. The painting descended in his family until 1989, when it was sold at a public auction in Monaco, and there acquired by the Wildenstein & Company gallery.
This monumental painting will be a transformative addition to the Museum’s galleries of European art at the end of the eighteenth century. This is a particularly rich segment of the European collections, with historically significant works by artists such as Joseph Vernet, Anne Vallayer-Coster, Jacques-Louis David, and, of course, Giroust himself. His neo-classical history painting Oedipus at Colonus, has been a mainstay of our galleries since its acquisition in 1992. The Harp Lesson would be an equally important addition to the collection for the genre of portraiture. The Museum’s holding of eighteenth-century portraiture are quite small, with only modest examples by Pompeo Batoni, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and George Romney. The Michael L. Rosenberg Collection, on deposit at the Dallas Museum of Art since 2004, also includes portraits by Nicolas de Largillière, François-André Vincent, and Elizabeth Vigée-Lebrun, but there is no eighteenth-century portrait of comparable importance at the Museum. This large, publicly-oriented painting of eminent and even celebrity sitters is of first importance as an example of the art of portraiture, but it must also be considered a major work of art in any genre from the first, hopeful phase of the French Revolution.
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256635979: UMO Gallery Talk Giroust: Harp Lesson
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General Description
During a music lesson, fourteen-year-old Louise Marie Adelaïde Eugénie de Bourbon d’Orléans, daughter of the Duc d’Orléans, plays a duet with her governess, Madame de Genlis. The other figure in this triple portrait is her English teacher, Mademoiselle Paméla, who turns pages at the music stand. In the background of this neoclassical interior is a bronze statue of Minerva, the Roman goddess of wisdom. She wears a Phrygian bonnet and holds a pike, which were symbols of the French Revolution. This imagery served a political purpose by distancing the Duc d’Orléans from the Bourbon monarchy in an attempt to avoid death by the guillotine, a fate suffered by many French nobles during the Revolution. By depicting the musical trio’s intelligence, talent, and dedication, the painter, Jean Antoine Théodore Giroust, fashioned the Duc d’Orléans and his family as supporters of liberal, Enlightenment values.
Excerpt from
Laura Sevelis, DMA label copy, 2015
Fun Facts
Archival Resources
Web Resources
Notes
Created 1791
April 2015
Acquisition proposal pulled from TMS:
This remarkable life-size triple portrait by the neo-classical painter Jean Antoine Théodore Giroust created a sensation when it debuted at the Salon of 1791. Each of the three sitters would have been a well-known personality to the Salon audience, and the painting is an indelible document of the self-fashioning of the liberal French aristocracy under the National Assembly (1789-92).
At center, seated at her gilded harp, is the fourteen-year-old Louise Marie Adelaïde Eugénie d’Orléans (1777-1847). She was the third child and only surviving daughter of Louis Philippe Joseph de Bourbon, duc d’Orléans (1747-1793), head of the cadet branch of the French monarchy. To her right, likewise seated at a harp, is her governess, Stéphanie Félicité du Crest de Saint-Aubin, Comtesse de Genlis (1746-1830), an aristocratic woman who became famous as a novelist, educator, and indefatigable harpist. Unusually, Madame de Genlis had been entrusted with the education of the duc d’Orléans sons as well as his daughters, and she was the author of several progressive educational texts. The third woman, standing at left, is Mademoiselle Paméla (c. 1773-1831), who had been adopted by Madame de Genlis and raised as a companion to the d’Orléans children. She was possibly Madame de Genlis’s natural daughter, but was reported at the time to be an English orphan. She was named in honor of the 1740 novel Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded by English writer Samuel Richardson.
Giroust’s detailed representation of the sitters, their dress and accessories, and their elegant neoclassical furnishings testify to the efforts of the duc d’Orléans to craft a public image of his family and retinue as paragons of Enlightenment virtue and progressive cultural tastes. The painting was exhibited shortly after the royal family’s ill-fated attempt to flee France, after which they were brought back to Paris and imprisoned at the Temple. The duc d’Orléans, an enthusiastic supporter of the Revolution, was in the midst of a campaign to have himself declared regent in a new constitutional monarchy. By the following year, as the Revolution entered a more
radical phase, he rechristened himself “Philippe Egalité,” shedding his Bourbon name and aristocratic title, but his political makeover did not save him from being sent to the guillotine at the height of the Terror in 1793.
Antoine Giroust played an important role in d’Orléans political messaging in the early 1790s. He had been trained in the studio of the leading neo-classical painter, Joseph Marie Vien, alongside his contemporary Jacques-Louis David. Following study in Rome, Giroust was received as a full member of the Academy in 1789 with the painting Oedipus at Colonus (Dallas Museum of Art, Foundation for the Art Collection, Mrs. John B. O’Hara Fund, 1992.22.FA). By 1791, he was working almost exclusively for the duc d’Orleans, and in the years that followed his fortunes rose and fell with those of the d’Orléans family.
In 1792, Giroust volunteered for military service as an aide de camp to the duc de Chartres, the eldest son of Philippe Egalité and the future King Louis Philippe. After the duc d’Orléans and his sons were arrested by the Committee of Public Safety in April 1793, Giroust was able to escape to the countryside, where he lived for some years in relative obscurity, near his home town of Vivier. In 1795, Giroust was invited, perhaps at the behest of his former studio-mate David, to be one of the inaugural members of the newly created Institute, as a “non-resident” member since he remained in the countryside. He settled in the eastern province of Lorraine,
where by 1800 he was serving as mayor of the town of Serres. His final professional venture as an artist was the exhibition of two history paintings, Éponine et Sabinus and Sainte Godelive , at the Salon of the Year X (1802). Following this exhibition, Giroust largely returned to private life. He passed away in 1817 at his house in Vivier.
A full-size replica of The Harp Lesson was produced in 1842 by Jean-Baptise Mauzaisse (1784-1844) for King Louis Philippe, the brother of Mademoiselle d’Orleans. This replica remains in the historical gallery of Versailles (inv. no. MV 4531). It was once believed that the original canvas had been destroyed during the Revolution of 1848, when it was hanging in the Palais-Royal, but in fact the painting remained the property of the Bourbon Orléans family by descent from 1791 until 1937, when it was sold in Brussels as a “school of David” painting and was acquired by a Belgian collector, Baron Robert Gendebien. The painting descended in his family until 1989, when it was sold at a public auction in Monaco, and there acquired by the Wildenstein & Company gallery.
This monumental painting will be a transformative addition to the Museum’s galleries of European art at the end of the eighteenth century. This is a particularly rich segment of the European collections, with historically significant works by artists such as Joseph Vernet, Anne Vallayer-Coster, Jacques-Louis David, and, of course, Giroust himself. His neo-classical history painting Oedipus at Colonus, has been a mainstay of our galleries since its acquisition in 1992. The Harp Lesson would be an equally important addition to the collection for the genre of portraiture. The Museum’s holding of eighteenth-century portraiture are quite small, with only modest examples by Pompeo Batoni, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and George Romney. The Michael L. Rosenberg Collection, on deposit at the Dallas Museum of Art since 2004, also includes portraits by Nicolas de Largillière, François-André Vincent, and Elizabeth Vigée-Lebrun, but there is no eighteenth-century portrait of comparable importance at the Museum. This large, publicly-oriented painting of eminent and even celebrity sitters is of first importance as an example of the art of portraiture, but it must also be considered a major work of art in any genre from the first, hopeful phase of the French Revolution.
Artist/designers
Cultures
Geography
Place of origin: France (nation): TGN: 1000070
Process/materials
Historical periods
Individuals
Subject terms
RELATED OBJECTS
PROVENANCE
AUDIO ASSETS
256635979: UMO Gallery Talk Giroust: Harp Lesson
VIDEO ASSETS
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