#paris 1829

[historicalbookimages]

👩‍🌾 Revue horticole. Paris: Librairie agricole de la maison rustique, 1829-1974.

[anotherhumaninthisworld]

Frev friendships — Robespierre and Éléonore Duplay

Please present the testimonies of my tender friendship to Madame Duplay, to your young ladies, and to my little friend. Also, please do not forget to remind me of La Coste and Couthon.  Robespierre in a letter to Maurice Duplay, October 16 1791

Present the testimonies of my tender and unalterable attachment to your ladies, whom I very much desire to embrace, as well as our little patriot.  Robespierre to Maurice Duplay, November 17 1791. These letters are the only pieces conserved in which Robespierre mentions Éléonore.

[Robespierre’s] host's daughter passed for his wife and exercised a sort of empire over him.   Causes secrètes de la révolution du 9 au 10 thermidor (1794) by Joachim Vilate, page 16.

When the constituent assembly was transferred to Paris after the October days, Robespierre came to stay in the house of Duplay, located on rue Saint-Honoré, opposite the convent of Assomption, and wasted no time in becoming a zealous devotee. The father, the mother, the sons, the daughters, the cousins, etc, swore only by Robespierre, who deigned to raise the eldest of the two [sic] daughters to the honors of his bed, without however marrying her other than with the left hand. At the time of the organization of the revolutionary tribunal, Robespierre had father Duplay appointed as juror; the two sons had a distinguished rank among Maximilien I’s bodyguards, whose leader was Brigadier General Boulanger. Mother Duplay became superior of the devotees of Robespierre; and her daughters, as well as her nieces and several of her neighbors, obtained high ranks in this respectable body.  Souvenirs thermidoriens (1844) by Georges Duval, volume 1, page 247.

It has been rumored that [Éléonore] had been Robespierre's mistress. I think I can affirm she was his wife; according to the testimony of one of my colleagues, Saint-Just had been informed of this secret marriage, which he had attended.   Mémoires d’un prêtre regicide (1829) by Simon-Edme Monnel, page 337-338.

Madame Lebreton, a sweet and sensitive young woman, said, blushing: “Everyone assures that Eugénie [sic] Duplay was Robespierre’s mistress.”  “Ah! My God! Is it possible that that good and generous creature should have so degraded herself?” I was aghast.  “Listen,” cried Henriette, “don’t judge on appearances. The unhappy Eugénie was not the mistress, but the wife of the monster, whom her pure soul decorated with every virtue; they were united by a secret marriage of which Saint-Just was the witness.”   Souvernirs de 1793 et 1794 par madame Clément, Née Hémery (1832) by Albertine Clément-Hémery.

[Robespierre’s] relationship with Éléonore, the carpenter's eldest daughter, had a less protective and more tender character than with her other sisters. One day, Maximilien, in the presence of his hosts, took Éléonore's hand in his: it was, in accordance with the customs of his province, a sign of engagement. From that moment on he was seen more than ever as a member of the family.  Une Maison de la Rue Saint-Honoré by Alphonse Ésquiros, published in Revue de Paris, number 9 (May 1 1844). At the end of this article, Esquiros claimed to have obtained the information contained in it from Éléonore’s sister Élisabeth. Shortly thereafter, said Élisabeth did however write a letter to the paper in order to ”protest loudly against the use that, without consulting me, you have made of my name, and to declare that this article, on many points in contradiction with my recollections, also contains a large number of inaccuracies.” She does unfortunately not indicate exactly which parts of the article are inaccurate and which ones are not, and certain details contained in it match up too well with what Élisabeth writes in her (by then not yet published) memoirs for me not to believe Esquiros hadn’t actually interviewed her prior to writing the article. In spite of her complaint, all the information in article was republished, almost entirely word for word, in volume 2 of Ésquiros’ Histoire des Montagnards (1847).

My eldest sister had been promised to Robespierre.   Note written by Élisabeth Duplay, cited on page 150 of Le conventionnel Le Bas : d'après des documents inédits et les mémoires de sa veuve (1901) by Stéfane-Pol.

Duplay's eldest daughter, Éléonore, shared her father's patriotic sentiments. She was one of those serious and just minds, one of those firm and upright characters, one of those generous and devoted hearts, the model of which must be sought in the good times of the ancient republics. Maximilien could not fail to pay homage to such virtues; a mutual esteem brought their two hearts together; they loved each other without ever having said so to each other, there is no doubt that if he had succeeded in bringing order and calm to the State, and if his existence had ceased to be so agitated, he would have become his friend's son-in-law. The slander, which spared none of those loved by the victim of the Thermidorians, did not fail to attack the woman he wanted to make his wife, and one was not afraid to write that a guilty bond united them. We, who knew Éléonore Duplay for nearly fifty years, we who know to what extent she carried the feeling of duty, to what extent she rose above the weaknesses and fragility of her sex, we strongly protest against such an odious imputation. Our testimony deserves all confidence. France: Dictionnaire Encyclopédique (1840-1845) by Éléonore’s nephew Philippe Lebas jr, volume 6, page 821.

A virile soul, said Robespierre of his friend [Éléonore], she would know how to die as she knows how to love... The destitution of his fortune and the uncertainty of the next day prevented him from uniting with her before the destiny of France was clarified; but he only aspired, he said, to the moment when, the Revolution finished and strengthened, he could withdraw from the fray, marry the one he loved and go live in Artois, on one of the farms that he kept from his family's property, to there confuse his obscure well-being in common happiness. (Extract from a part of l’Histoire des Girondins looked over by Philippe Le Bas).  Le conventionnel Le Bas: d'après des documents inédits et les mémoires de sa veuve (1901) by Stéfane-Pol, page 78.

All the historians assert that [Robespierre] carried out an intrigue with the daughter of Duplay, but as the family physician and constant guest of that house I am in a position to deny this on oath. They were devoted to each other, and their marriage was arranged; but nothing of the kind alleged ever sullied their love.    Testimony from Robespierre’s doctor Joseph Souberbielle, cited in Recollections of a Parisian (docteur Poumiès de La Siboutie) under six sovereigns, two revolutions, and a republic (1789-1863) (1911) page 26.

[Robespierre] rarely went out in the evening. Two or three times a year he took Madame Duplay and her daughters to the theater. It was always to the Théâtre-Français and to classical performances. He only liked tragic declamations which reminded him of the tribune, of tyranny, of the people, of great crimes, of great virtues; theatrical even in his dreams and in his relaxations.  Histoire des Girondins (1847) by Alphonse de Lamartine, volume 4, page 132. Lamartine claimed to have interviewed Élisabeth Le Bas Duplay and it therefore seems likely for this detail to come from her.

The eldest of the Duplay daughters, who Robespierre wanted to marry, was called Éléonore. Robespierre allowed himself to be cared for, but he was not in love. […] The Duplay family formed a kind of cult around Robespierre. It was claimed that this new Jupiter did not need to take the metamorphoses of the god of Olympus to become human with the eldest daughter of his host, called Éléonore. This is completely false. Like her entire family, this young girl was a fanatic of the god Robespierre, she was even more exalted because of her age. But Robespierre did not like women, he was absorbed in his political enlightenment; his abstract dreams, his metaphysical discourses, his guards, his personal security, all things incompatible with love, gave him no hold on this passion. He loved neither women nor money and cared no more about his private interests than if all the merchants had been free, obligatory suppliers to him, and the inn houses paid in advance for his use. And that’s what he acted like with his hosts.  Notes historiques sur la Convention nationale, le Directoire, l’Empire et l’exil des votants (1895) by Marc Antoine Baudot, page 41 and 242.

Madame Duplay had three [sic] daughters: one married the conventionnel Le Bas; another married, I believe, an ex-constituent; the third, Éléonore, who preferred to be called Cornélie, and who was the eldest, was, according to what people pleased themselves to say, on the point of marrying my brother Maximilien when 9 Thermidor came. There are in regard to Éléonore Duplay two opinions: one, that that she was the mistress of Robespierre the elder; the other that she was his fiancée. I believe that these opinions are equally false; but what is certain is that Madame Duplay would have strongly desired to have my brother Maximilien for a son-in-law, and that she forget neither caresses nor seductions to make him marry her daughter. Éléonore too was very ambitious to call herself the Citizeness Robespierre, and she put into effect all that could touch Maximilien’s heart. But, overwhelmed with work and affairs as he was, entirely absorbed by his functions as a member of the Committee of Public Safety, could my older brother occupy himself with love and marriage? Was there a place in his heart for such futilities, when his heart was entirely filled with love for the patrie, when all his sentiments, all his thoughts were concentrated in a sole sentiment, in a sole thought, the happiness of the people; when, without cease fighting against the revolution’s enemies, without cease assailed by his personal enemies, his life was a perpetual combat? No, my older brother should not have, could not have amused himself to be a Celadon with Éléonore Duplay, and, I should add, such a role would not enter into his character. Besides, I can attest it, he told me twenty times that he felt nothing for Éléonore; her family’s obsessions, their importunities were more suited to make feel disgust for her than to make him love her. The Duplays could say what they wanted, but there is the exact truth. One can judge if he was disposed to unite himself to Madame Duplay’s eldest daughter by something I heard him say to Augustin:  “You should marry Éléonore.”   “My faith, no,” replied my younger brother.   Mémoires de Charlotte Robespierre sur ses deux frères (1834) page 90-91.

A little wooden staircase led to [Robespierre’s] room on the first floor. Prior to ascending it we (Fréron and Barras) perceived in the yard the daughter of the carpenter Duplay, the owner of the house. This girl allowed no one to take her place in ministering to Robespierre's needs. As women of this class in those days freely espoused the political ideas then prevalent, and as in her case they were of a most pronounced nature, Danton had surnamed Cornelie Copeau "the Cornelia who is not the mother of the Gracchi." Cornelie seemed to be finishing spreading linen to dry in the yard; in her hand were a pair of striped cotton stockings, in fashion at the time, and which were certainly similar to those we daily saw encasing the legs of Robespierre on his visits to the Convention. […] Fréron and I told Cornelie Copeau that we had called to see Robespierre. She began by informing us that he was not in the house, then asked whether he was expecting our visit. Fréron, who was familiar with the premises, advanced towards the staircase, while Mother Duplay shook her head in a negative fashion at her daughter. Both generals, smilingly enjoying what was passing through the two women's minds, told us plainly by their looks that he was at home, and to the women that he was not. Cornelie Copeau, on seeing that Fréron, persisting in his purpose, had his foot on the third step, placed herself in front of him, exclaiming: ”Well, then, I will apprise him of your presence," and, tripping upstairs, she again called out, "It’s Fréron and his friend, whose name I do not know." Fréron thereupon said, "It’s Barras and Freron," as if announcing himself, entering the while Robespierre's room, the door of which had been opened by Cornelie Copeau, we following her closely.  Memoirs of Barras: member of the Directorate (1899) page 167-169, regarding a meeting he and Fréron tried to have with Robespierre following their return from Marseilles in March 1794.

In the morning, the daughters of the carpenter with whom Robespierre lived dressed in white and gathered flowers in their hands to attend the feast [of the Supreme Being]. Éléonore herself composed the bouquet for the president of the Convention. Histoire des Montagnards (1847) by Alphonse Esquiros, volume 2, page 447-449. In a footnote inserted on page 28 of Thermidor, d’après les sources originalets er les documents authentiques (1891), Ernest Hamel writes that Esquiros obtained this description from Élisabeth herself.

…Éléonore, Victoire, Sophie, Élisabeth, raised in the peaceful interior of the home, in the oasis of the family, sincerely imagined that the same happiness extended to the whole city; they blessed in their hearts the God of the revolution who had given such rest to the French nation. Only one circumstance worried them, it was that for some time the porte-cochère of the house had been strictly closed night and day on orders from the carpenter. Éléonore timidly asked Maximilien the reason for it in front of her other sisters. He blushed. “Your father is right,” he said; ”Everyday right now something passes along this street that you must not see.” In fact, around two o'clock in the afternoon, a tumbril was rolling heavily on the pavement of Rue Saint-Honoré; the sound of horses and the cries of people could be heard even in the courtyard. It was the thing that passed by.  Une Maison de la Rue Saint-Honoré by Alphonse Ésquiros, published in Revue de Paris, number 9 (May 1 1844). The incident is portayed as taking place during the time of the ”great terror” of June-July 1794. When republishing the anecdote in his Histoire des Montagnards (1847), Esquiros instead has Robespierre say this to Éléonore on January 21 1793, the day of the king’s execution.

It was the first days of Thermidor: Maximilien continued his evening walks at the Champ-Élysées with his adoptive family. The sun, at the end of the sky, buried its globe behind the clumps of trees, or swam softly here and there in a dark gold fluid. The sounds of the city died away in the agitated branches; everything was rest, silence and meditation: no more tribunes, no more people; nothing but the peaceful and solemn teaching of nature. Maximilien walked with the carpenter's eldest daughter at his arm: Brount followed them. What were they saying to each other? Only the breeze heard and forgot everything. Éléonore had a melancholy brow and downcast eyes: her hand carelessly stroked the head of Brount who seemed very proud of such beautiful caresses; Maximilien showed his fiancée how red the sunset was. Here ends the story of intimate life; here Mme L(ebas) movedly wiped her eyes. This walk was the last. The next day, Maximilien disappeared in a storm.  Une Maison de la Rue Saint-Honoré by Alphonse Ésquiros, published in Revue de Paris, number 9 (May 1 1844). When republishing the anecdote in Histoire des Montagnards (1847), volume 2, page 460, Esquiros adds the following part right after reprinting the anecdote word by word: “It will be good weather tomorrow,” said [Éléonore]. Maximilien lowered his head as if struck by an image and a terrible presentiment.

Legendre: At the time of 9 Thermidor, I was secretary as well as Dumont: I said to him: “There’s going to be some noise. Do you see in this rostrum the whole Duplay family? Do you see Gerard? Do you see Dechamps?” At the same moment Saint-Just began his speech; Tallien interrupted him and tore the veil.  Louis Legendre at the Convention March 26 1795

One of those who had witnessed the outcome of this catastrophe (the execution on 10 thermidor) told me that he recognized in the crowd Duplay's eldest daughter, who had wanted to see for one last time the man whom her whole family had looked upon as a god. Mémoires d’un prêtre regicide (1829) by Simon-Edme Monnel, page 337.

The widow of the deputy Le Bas, who gave birth to the man who was to be my teacher, was one of the daughters of the carpenter Duplay. This Duplay family had become Robespierre’s family. He lived with them, and when he died, he was engaged to Mademoiselle Éléonore, the sister of Madame Le Bas. The fiancée mourned Robespierre up until her death. This whole family was closely united, and the memory of the deceased contributed not a little to this union. Premières années, (1901) by Jules Simon, p. 181-187.

[indigodreams]

 @biodiversitypix.bsky.social

Revue horticole. Paris: Librairie agricole de la maison rustique, 1829-1974.

[chic-a-gigot]

Journal des Dames et des Modes, Costumes Parisiens, 10 mai 1829, (2693): Chapeau de paille de riz du magasin de Mme La Rochelle, Rue de Richelieu, No. 93. Robe de gros de Indes garnie d'un volant à tête découpée. Poignets de mousseline plissés et brodés. Collection of the Rijksmuseum, Netherlands

Hat in 'paille de riz', from the La Rochelle shop. Dress of 'gros de Indes', decorated with a wrinkled strip of fabric, which is serrated at the top. Pleated muslin cuffs with embroidery. Further accessories: necklace with key pendant, gloves, flat shoes with crossed straps and square toes. The print is part of the fashion magazine Journal des Dames et des Modes, published by Pierre de la Mésangère, Paris, 1797-1839.

[life-imitates-art-far-more]

John Everett Millais (1829-1896) "Mercy: St Bartholomew’s Day, 1572" (1886) Oil on canvas Pre-Raphaelite Located in the Tate Gallery, London, England The painting portrays an imaginary incident at the time of the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre in Paris on 24 August 1572, when thousands of Protestants were slaughtered by Catholics. A Nun begs for '"Mercy"' on behalf of the hapless Protestants, but the man pulls her arm away and moves to follow the call to arms indicated by the Friar who beckons from the open doorway.

[mythological-art]

Education of Achilles by the Centaur Chiron

Artist: Jean-Baptiste Regnault (French, 1754–1829)

Date: 1782

Medium: Oil on Canvas

Collection: Louvre Museum, Paris, France

Description

The story depicted in this painting is a well known story from Greek mythology. One of the characters in this painting is Chiron who is noted as being a brave and noble centaur. He is also noted as being the teacher of many great Greek men who had been sent as children to be the students of the centaur Chiron. One of the people sent to train under him was the boy Achilles. Among others, Chiron taught Achilles how to wrestle, sword fight, and the painting above shows how to shoot a bow well.

[transmutationisms]

what are your thoughts on tertius lydgate wrt marking shifts in discourses of medicine? his position in the novel fascinated me as someone who feels very strongly about the role of doctors in society, and I’m curious to hear your thoughts on the matter

YES lydgate rules so hard in my personal pantheon of doctor characters. sorry this has been in my inbox for a thousand years i had was rotating.

so first of all one of the things that makes 'middlemarch' interesting is that it's a historical novel. so, when george eliot creates a doctor character for the year 1829, writing from 40 or so years later, she's using him to comment on (her perception of) changes to medical science in britain over the course of several decades. so for instance, the fact that lydgate trained in edinburgh and paris tells us immediately that we're supposed to understand him not just as a member of a newly 'respectable' profession, but specifically as having a viewpoint that is informed by radical student politics (edinburgh) and conceptions of the doctor as a social reformer (paris) as well as the research traditions of raspail and bichat. indeed this is why lydgate's crusade in town includes his ideas about sanitation and public health; in contradistinction to the other physicians, he sees his medical and scientific authority as giving him the ability and responsibility to reform the town more broadly. like his parisian counterparts, lydgate clearly sees a link between, eg, cholera and more general social and political unrest. he fashions himself as someone who can doctor the social body as much as the individual patient; given his parisian training we can place him loosely in a social-hygienist context here.

lydgate is also a pretty early example in british literature of a doctor character who's presented as a) not a charlatan and b) heroic explicitly on the basis of his medical and scientific status. british medical practitioners were subject to a new licensure requirement in 1815 i believe (i'd have to double check this date i don't read as much in 19thc britain); 'middlemarch' was written around 1870 and set in 1829–32. so, for eliot, lydgate was genuinely part of a markedly new wave of physicians—men who were licensed (read: state-approved) and occupied a new social position. lydgate is also minor aristocracy, which is part of what makes it possible for him to scoff at the town's older physicians, but much of his social position in the town is accrued in conjunction with the newly and increasingly prestigious status of his profession. this is not really a character type that would have been plausible in a realist novel set in the same country a generation or two earlier.

eliot herself was married to a man of science and also kept abreast of medical and scientific ideas (for example, she was extremely interested in phrenology, an influence you can see throughout 'middlemarch'), and lydgate is very much a man of the times in this respect: he diagnoses george's scarlet fever in the early stage, for example, and refuses to dispense his own prescriptions or to take money from pharmacists. these, along with his emphasis on public health and sanitation measures, mark him as not just an idealist but someone whose medical practice was genuinely steeped in current principles of scientific and ethical reform. even his embrace of bichat's tissue theory, though presented somewhat vaguely, would have signalled to a reader familiar with recent anatomical theories that lydgate was not just a fashionable thinker (bichat died in about 1802, but his work came to popularity over the next 3-4 decades in england and france) but also a precise and naturalistic one, aligning himself with a research tradition that emphasised specific, local lesions as etiological agents (compare this to the brain-localisation ideas of the phrenologists).

ultimately, lydgate's tragedy is that his medical knowledge isn't matched by any social acuity, and his match with rosamond is dissatisfying for both of them. i don't read this as eliot condemning the aspirational early stages of lydgate's career; his mistakes are all made in the interpersonal arena, with both rosamond and the raffles affair. had he played these situations smarter, who knows what he may or may not have accomplished for the residents of middlemarch. instead, he ends the book as a successful but dissatisfied physician to the wealthy, in a position of financial security and medical specialisation but without the kind of moral or political status that he sought earlier in the book by presenting himself as both a social and medical reformer. eliot thus engages, i think, another new type of doctor character: lydgate at the end of the book still has no trace of the quackery or charlatanism that characterised many previous representations of doctors, but he's also been purged of the youthful idealism that pervaded the edinburgh and paris medical education he received. the social status he attains at the end of his life is based on his wealth and the general respectability of the medical profession; treating gout doesn't give him any higher prestige than that, and certainly not the kind of moral authority or fulfillment he wanted back in middlemarch.

so, and recognising that this sort of leaves aside a lot of the psychological nuance of the novel, lydgate's storyline gets at two of the major historical points eliot is interested in. first there's the changing status of british medicine and medical practitioners. lydgate begins the novel as the self-styled hero-reformer; experiences a social fall from grace that compounds with the resistance he already faces from the other town physicians for the threat he poses to their professional status; and ends as the consummate specialist, performing the same boring, lucrative work day in and day out for wealthy londoners (note also the use of gout here to indicate a high degree of moral lassitude and overconsumption among his patients, lol). secondly, and relatedly, there's a shift in class positions going on here. lydgate's initial position in middlemarch is as minor (not wealthy) nobility; by the end of the book he's in a newly high-status professional class, has gained more wealth (though ofc not enough for rosamond), and has been forced out of the countryside. this all tracks with both the expansion of cities generally in this period, and the strengthening of the middle class / petit bourgeois (consider the 1832 reform bill).

although eliot's own views about medicine were largely concordent with the kind of positivistic naturalism of her peers (see again her interest in phrenology), part of what she does with lydgate is, i think, intended as a warning: here's a confluence of forces that have turned an idealistic public health reformer into a dissatisfied man pursuing his personal material security at the direct expense of his philanthropic and altruistic aims. it's a success story for the medical profession in many ways (financially, reputationally) but also a tragedy in the eyes of anyone who believes that physicians ought to have more responsibility to their patients and their polities than their pocketbooks. we're meant to understand medicine as not just a personal curative, but potentially a socially enlightening force---but, only if its aspirations in this direction aren't hindered by the very forces turning it into a more respectable and lucrative career for the rising professional class.

[queenie435]

𝗘𝗗𝗠𝗢𝗡𝗗 𝗔𝗟𝗕𝗜𝗨𝗦 (1829-1880)

Edmond Albius was born a slave in 1829, in St. Suzanne, on the island Réunion. His mother died during childbirth, and he never knew his father. In his youth he was sent to work for Botanist Fereol Bellier-Beaumont.

The vanilla plant was flourishing in Mexico, and by the late 18th century, a few plants were sent to Paris, London, Europe and Asia, in hopes of producing the bean in other areas. Although the vine would grow and flower, it would not produce any beans. French colonists brought vanilla beans to Réunion around 1820.

Beaumont had been teaching young Edmond how to tend to the various plants on his estate. He taught him how to hand-pollinate a watermelon plant. Beaumont had previously planted vanilla beans, and had just one vine growing for over twenty years, but was also unable to produce any beans on the vine. Young Edmond began to study the plant and made a discovery. He carefully probed the plant and found the part of the flower that produced the pollen. Edmond then discovered the stigma, the part of the plant that needed to be dusted with the pollen to produce the bean. He used a blade of grass to separate the two flaps and properly fertilized the plant.

Shortly afterwards, while walking through the gardens, Beaumont noticed two packs of vanilla beans flourishing on the vine and was astonished when young Edmond told him that he was responsible for the pollination. Edmond was twelve years old at the time. Beaumont wrote to other plantation owners to tell them his slave Edmond had solved the vanilla bean pollination mystery. He then sent Edmond to other local plantations to teach other slaves how to fertilize the vanilla vine. Within the next twenty to thirty years, Réunion became the world’s largest producer of vanilla beans.

Edmond was rewarded with his freedom, and was given the last name Albius. Beaumont wrote to the governor, asking that Albius be given a cash stipend for his role in the discovery of the fertilization, but received no response. Albius moved to St. Denis and worked as a kitchen servant. He somehow got involved in a jewelry heist and was sentenced to ten years. Beaumont again wrote the governor on his behalf, and the sentence was commuted to five years, and Albius was subsequently released. A man named Jean Michel Claude Richard then set claim to have discovered the fertilization process before Albius. He claimed he visited the island in 1838, and taught a group of horticulturists the technique. Again, Beaumont stepped in and wrote to Réunion’s official historian declaring Albius as the true inventor, giving him all of the credit entirely. The letter survives as part of island history.

Albius returned to live close to Beaumont’s plantation and married. He died on August 9, 1880 at the age of 51 at a hospital in Sainte Suzanne. He never received any profits from his discovery. One hundred years after his death, the mayor of Réunion made amends by erecting a statue of Albius and naming a street and school after him.

[artthatgivesmefeelings]

Anselm Feuerbach (German, 1829-1881) Das Urteil des Paris, ca.1869-70 Hamburger Kunsthalle

[galleryofart]

Lady Reading the Letters of Heloise and Abelard

Artist: Bernard d’Agesci (French, 1756–1829)

Date: circa 1780

Medium: Oil on Canvas

Collection: Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL, United States

Description

This painting depicts a young woman lost in reverie after reading the letters of the ill-fated medieval lovers Heloise and Abelard. The objects on the table beside her—a letter, a sheet of music, and a book of erotic poetry—hint at a life of leisure and a susceptibility to love. In this early picture, Auguste Bernard drew upon history paintings by Peter Paul Rubens and Charles Le Brun, as well as Parisian traditions of genre painting and portraiture pioneered by Jean-Baptiste Greuze. Bernard worked in Paris in the early 1780s and studied in Italy for several years. Upon his return to Paris, he found his career frustrated by the French Revolution and the emergent fashion for the more austere Neoclassical style.

[resplendentoutfit]

Women in Black – 1880-1929

Philip Alexius de Laszlo (Anglo/Hungarian, 1869-1937) • Violet Marcia Catherine Warwick Bampfylde (1883–1954), Countess of Onslow • 1929

Left: Marlene Dietrich in tuxedo and tophat

Right: Roaring 20s model in a black dress

Charles Giron (French, 1850-1914) • Femme aux gants, dite La Parisienne (The Woman with Gloves, known as La Parisienne) • 1883 • Petit Palaise, Le Musée des Baux-Arts de la Ville de Paris

Left: Auguste Toulmouch (French, 1829–1890) • Portrait d'une élégante en tenue de ball • 1889

Right: Herbert James Gunn (British, 1893 - 1964) • Pauline Waiting • 1939 • Royal Academy of Arts

[historicalbookimages]

🌻 Revue horticole. Paris: Librairie agricole de la maison rustique, 1829-1974.

[handeaux]

For A Century Cincinnati’s Fashionistas Fawned Over A Shade Called ‘Invisible Green’

As the local haberdasheries and modistes swell with shoppers clamoring for appropriate gifts for their kith and kin, what colors do they promote? It seems a silly question these days when, as the old song once claimed, “anything goes,” and the entire spectrum is accessible for plundering in the name of habilimentation. Is there any color particularly fashionable this year?

More than a century ago, that was quite a pertinent inquiry. The wrong shade of your dress might ostracize you from society. Reading antique articles about bygone fashion trends is always entertaining, but there are occasions in which it appears that stylish Cincinnatians were engaged in sorcery. Were there premonitions of Harry Potter’s Invisibility Cloak? Here is the Cincinnati Enquirer from 3 February 1889:

“A pretty house dress is here shown. It is of invisible green soft wool goods with tracings of fawn color, and trimmed with bands of fawn and brighter green.”

And here the Cincinnati Gazette from 8 August 1877:

“The dry goods stores are announcing their last selling off arrangements to close the season, and in a little while fall fashions and dress goods will hold full sway. Respecting the coming season, we are told that the color for street wear will be sage green in its darkest shades, rechristened Marjolaine, or else a very dark, almost an invisible green.”

What in the world is invisible green? Was this something like the recent fad for camouflage patterns in sportswear? Were Cincinnatians attempting to glide down Fourth Street with no one catching a glimpse of them, perhaps skulking toward a discreet rendezvous?

As it turns out, “Invisible Green” as a fashionable color originated not among the ateliers of Paris, but in the gardens of Regency England. As a color, it has, perhaps, more to do with Jane Austen than with later couturières.

Invisible Green was a favorite color of Humphrey Repton, a legendary landscape designer during Jane Austen’s lifetime. Invisible Green was a very dark green oil paint compounded by mixing yellow ochre and black pigments with white lead. The resulting hue proved to be ideal for slathering on wooden and ironwork gates and rails in parks, pleasure grounds, and gardens to render them almost invisible at a distance because of the manner in which this particular hue approximated the natural color of vegetation.

T.H. Vanherman, the premier London “colourman” of his day, described Invisible Green in this manner in 1829:

“The Invisible Green is one of the most pleasant colours for fences, and all work connected with buildings, gardens, or pleasure grounds, as it displays a richness and solidity, and also harmonizes with every object, and is a back-ground and foil to the foliage of fields, trees, and plants, as also to flowers.”

Soon enough, Invisible Green was adopted by the fashionistas, and fabrics in that particular shade were being unloaded at the Cincinnati wharfs as early as 1838. The fashion pages of Cincinnati’s newspapers regularly announced Invisible Green as either the primary color or a trim color for men’s and women’s fashions for the next 60 years.

Yes, men were just as enamored with Invisible Green as were the womenfolk. Here is the Cincinnati Commercial Tribune [4 January 1890]:

“It is stated by fashion authorities that the fashionable color in men’s clothing for spring will be green, and already orders have been given by fashionable tailors for solid invisible green in diagonals and worsteds.”

And here is the Enquirer [21 April 1882], laying down the law on men’s vests for the spring season:

“Vests are all single-breasted, no-collar, closed high with seven or eight buttons, four patch pockets, short in the waist and cut straight across the front. There is no demand for collars on the vest, even dress suits being without them. The finish of the edge corresponds with the coat and the material with the trousers. Fancy vestings are gaining in popularity. Invisible greens, reds or blues form a background for dots, broken designs, checks and bars placed at right angles, touched up with streaks of color.”

Even transportation adopted Invisible Green. The Enquirer [5 May 1882] described the “finest drag in America,” a “drag” being a type of stagecoach pulled by four horses:

“The springs and axles are regular mail-coach make, and have been thoroughly tested and given the highest grading. The wheel hubs are furnished with dust excluders of the best pattern. The body of the drag stands so high that the front wheels can be turned right under it, so that it can be wheeled around in its own length. The seats and facings are of the finest invisible green French cloth.”

We forget, in these kaleidoscopic days of extreme coloration, that the 1800s were not a drab, monochromatic time. Our forebears reveled in color and eye-popping fashion. They were continually putting one another down for violating what we would consider arcane peccadillos in dress. Perhaps the worst insult a woman could land on a social rival was to observe that she was wearing last year’s color.

To read the old fashion pages is to find oneself immersed in a palette of almost psychedelic possibilities. We hear about cadet, mastic, ecru, canary, tobacco, seal, sea water, vine, fawn, wheat, pansy, dahlia, pearl, lilac, claret, gendarme, mulberry chartreuse, absinthe, capucine, nasturtium and moss. So, why not Invisible Green?

So common was this color that a Cincinnati journalist even adopted the pen name of “Invisible Green, Esq.” (More on that fellow at a later date.)

Eventually, after a century of not actually being invisible, the time-hallowed shade of Invisible Green fell out of fashion. The death knell sounded in the form of a joke. It was published in the Cincinnati Post [31 October 1904] and it went like this:

“Servant: The butcher won’t leave no more meat, sir, he says, until he sees the color of your money. “Mr. Hardup: Why – er – tell him it’s invisible green.”

[massimogilardi]

Jeune chasseur blessé par un serpent. 1827, Petitot Louis Messidor Lebon. Musée du Louvre - Paris France.

Sculpture commandée le 29 mars 1825 par le ministère de la Maison du Roi. Entré au Louvre en décembre 1827. Placé au musée du Luxembourg, le 28 mars 1829, et catalogué à cet emplacement de 1829 à 1858. Mentionné en 1870 dans l’inventaire du ministère d’État (escalier dit « du Ministre », vestibule). Transmis en 1991 par le ministère des Finances avec l'ensemble du mobilier décorant les appartements de l'ancien ministère d'État.

[chic-a-gigot]

Beaux-arts des modes, no. 6, novembre 1937 (New York, Paris, London, Milano, Wien, Bruxelles). Bibliothèque nationale de France

1829 Society robe in crêpe satin with separate boléro. Horizontally shirred front, boléro sleeves of ocelot.

[pmikos]

Education of Achilles by the Centaur Chiron

1782 Oil on canvas, 261 x 215 cm Musée du Louvre, Paris

REGNAULT, Jean-Baptiste

(b. 1754, Paris, d. 1829, Paris)