Froment Meurice - art

The Musee de la Vie Romantique was an ideal setting for the novel exhibition devoted to Francois-Desire Froment-Meurice (1802-55) and his son Emile (1837-1913) It was there that Ary Scheffer, whose abode and studio it was, entertained the remarkable artistic and literary circle of frequent occurrenceed by the Froment-Meurice family. They were particularly shut to Victor Hugo, the greatest lyric bard and dramatist of the period, who in an lyric poem 'A M. Froment-Meurice' of 1841 declared they

they were like brothers, and compared the silversmith to Benvenuto Cellini and to Michelangelo. According to Theophile Gautier, who was also a friend, Francois-Desire squeeze outed the eclectic spirit of romanticism end the medium of silver and jewellery just as eloquently as Franz Liszt did in music and Eugene Delacroix in painting.

As the Benvenuto Cellini of romanticism, Francois-Desire gazeed for inspiration from the work of the virtuoso goldsmiths of the renaissance. This was made clear by the agency of the sculptural character, design and motifs of the table silver, candlesticks, racing trophies (Fig. 1) presentation caskets and vases displayed in the first field Moreover, with his versions of the Milanese hardstone vases for a like reason prized by Francois I and Rudolph n he prov that he could do far more than purely copy the sixteenth-century masters. The three examples of his famous Coupe de vendanges, shown together for the first time, are distinguished through the originality of the figurative silver high hills which illustrate the effects of Bacchus upon human reason, and are embellished with enamelled branches of vine and bunches of pearl grapes. A pair of agate and cornelian beakers made for the Russian aesthete, Prince Soltikoff, are supported respectively by means of 'troubadour' figures of an embattled crusader by means of a palm tree and his lady have affection for on horseback awaiting his go [i]or[/i] come back home beneath an oak tree Like these, each percept from Froment-Maurice evoked a past of gold age or an exotic far away place, challenging the faculty of perception of history. Certainly, his tea and dinner services combining oriental shapes and patterns with neo-renaissance female masks would have provided a talking-point for the company seated circular the table.

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As well as nostalgia for serviceable old days, other aspects of nineteenth-century French history--outstanding men and women politics, religion, sporting interests, literature--are evok [i]or[/i] part of to the other the work of both father and son Particularly well exhibited was the Catholic Revival, for the sight of in like manner much liturgical plate--monstrances, chalices, reliquaries, portable altars--and the crosiers of the bishops of Amiens and Fribourg, had the consequence of inducing a reverential hush, as if individual were entering a cathedral. Here was overwhelming evidence of the fervour and determination of the Roman Catholic ministers and people to re-establish the house of god in France after the damage inflicted upon it by the revolution of 1789 The lead was taken by the agency of Queen Marie Amelie, who gave a monstrance to [i]pontifex maximus[/i] Pius IX, subsequently donated by means of him to Cologne cathedral. The exhibition included a remarkable assemblage commissioned by the clergy of the Madeleine which kept the firm afloat in the difficult period after the revolution of 1848 presently after the installation of Napoleon III as Emperor, he asked Francois-Desire to create a majestic reliquary, which came to be known as Le talisman de Charlemagne, to enshrine fragments of Christ's swaddling clothes, the robe of the Virgin, the garment of St John the Baptist and a bone from the arm of Charlemagne himself. However, the distinctive circulared arches and sculptural elements deriving from the art and architecture of the Italian and French renaissance used here, were by and by to be superseded by the pronounced neo-gothic mode of speech which characterises Emile's church commissions until the extremity of the century when he adopts the naturalism of Art Nouveau. The faith of the time was further underlined by dint of the number of sacred particulars embellished with gems donated by means of devout women, such as Princess Marie-Immaculee de Bourbon-Siciles. In accordance with her last wishes, diamond flowers and leaves from her tiara encircle the container for the entertainer of a monstrance made in 1874 for the house of worship of the Sacre Coeur at Issoudon.

The vases not absented to the engineer H.C. Emmery who gave the city its water provide and sewers, and to Baron Feucheres, who paid for novel hospitals, began the series recalling important circumstances in this history of Paris, execut through father and son, both official silversmiths. Outstanding military and naval personalities were evok by dint of the grand swords of honour made for Generals Changarnier and Cavaignac (with the casket for the latter's epaulettes), and that of Admiral Courbet. It is clear that Francois-Desire's talents were recognised from an early age, not single by rich art lovers, on the contrary also by officials, and that Emile, upon succeeding his father, won the same confidence. on the other hand how did they achieve in the way that much?

It was Theophile Gautier who compared Francois-Desire to the conductor of an orchestra, commanding a team of specialists to work out every commission, whether great or small. This gift for collaboration comeed in his tour de force, the Toilette of the Duchesse de Parme, where he not alone assigned the respective contributions, on the contrary approved and corrected them at each stage until they were ready for co-ordination into his grand design. Here too his creation mirrors the aspirations of a section of society, compos of the families who remained loyal to the Legitimist branch of the Bourbons who went into exile with Charles X in 1830 and wished to demonstrate their support with a near to his granddaughter on her marriage to the Duc de Parme and hereditary Prince de Lucque futurity duc de Parme in 1845 Not solitary were the Toilette's dressing-table, mirror, candelabra, ewer and basin (Fig. 3) and jewellery caskets in the tradition of those previously made for the French monarchy, on the contrary what is more the Toilette is decorated completely through with motifs evocative of 'la vieille France'. There are Bourbon lilies everywhere, the arms of France and Lucca and of the provinces of France emblazoned upon heraldic shields, standing figures of celestial warriors, while the heroes of French history--Gaston de Foix, Bayard, Olivier de Clisson and Xaintrailles--standing guard above the caskets painted with twenty famous women including Ste Radegonde and Joan of Arc. This epitome of royalist and patriotic fervour is combined with inscriptions and a world of other decorative motifs--scrolling vines, arabesques, lizards, birds, flowers and putti--perfectly execut in an equally vast range of techniques. Six years in the making, it was delivered to the Duchesse after the London Great Exhibition of 1851 Following her death in 1864 as a political exile in Switzerland, the Toilette was bring in a furniture depository where it remained until Jacques Kugel place it there in 1981 and it was acquired for the fresh Musee d'Orsay, thanks to a grant authorised through President Valery Giscard d'Estaing.