LIBERTÉ! Ary Scheffer and the elusiveness of French Romanticism
Sanne Baar
tAry Scheffer is born on 10 February in Dordrecht. His parents Johan Bernard Scheffer (1764-1809) and Cornelia Lamme (1769-1839) are both painters. The couple have another two sons: Karel Arnoldus (1796-1853) and Henry Scheffer (1798-1862). Arnold later becomes a writer and political activist, Henry a painter.
Philosopher and writer Madame de Staël (1766-1817) is forced to travel around Europe owing to her political exile. That is how she meets the philosophers Goethe, Schiller and Herder in Germany. Her novel De l’Allemagne (1810) played a major role in shaping the concept of Romanticism in France.
After the death of her husband Johan Bernard Scheffer (1809), Cornelia departs for Paris with her sons Ary, Arnold and Henry. Ary and Henry are apprenticed to Pierre Guérin (1774-1833). Among the figures they meet here are Théodore Géricault (1791-1824) and Eugène Delacroix (1798-1863).
The storming of the Bastille on 14 July 1789 marks the start of the French Revolution. Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité! resounds across the city. Louis xvi is executed by guillotine on 21 January 1793, followed by Marie Antoinette in October of the same year.
The abolition of slavery takes a long time in France. Trade in and ownership of enslaved people is outlawed in 1794, but Napoleon re-introduces slavery in 1802 under pressure from the colonies. The slave trade is abolished again after the fall of Napoleon, and ownership of enslaved people is eventually abolished for good in 1848. Artists such as Géricault and Ary Scheffer align themselves with the abolitionist movement that campaigns to end slavery.
France conquers the Netherlands in 1795, marking the start of the French Period
Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) engineers a coup in 1799 and appoints himself First Consul of France. He crowns himself emperor in 1804. After the disastrous Russian campaign, he is defeated at Leipzig in 1813 and banished to Elba. He returns to France in 1815 for one hundred days but is finally defeated at Waterloo in June.
The Battle of Waterloo in June 1815 is followed in France by the Second White Terror against supporters of Napoleon. Louis xviii of the House of Bourbon , who has been in power since 1813, seeks a balance between revolution and restoration. His brother Charles x is crowned king in 1824. This period becomes known as the Restoration
Théodore Géricault presents The Raft of the Médusa at the Salon. The painter offers sharp criticism of the failing government and the maintenance of slavery.
Supported by France, Great Britain and Russia, the Greeks declare their independence in 1821: this marks the start of the Greek War of Independence against the oppression of the Ottoman Empire. Many artists support the Greeks.
Eugène Delacroix and Paul Delaroche (1797-1856) present their iconic works The Massacre at Chios and Joan of Arc Being Interrogated by the Cardinal of Winchester at the 1824 Salon. While Delacroix shocks with the horrors of the Greek War of Independence, Delaroche is lauded for the drama of his history painting.
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (1780-1867) lives alternately in Italy and France. He is the leader of the classical style within Romanticism. In 1827 he presents The Apotheosis of Homer at the Salon. That same year, Scheffer causes furore with The Souliot Women
In July the bourgeoisie revolt against the regime of Charles x . The insurrection lasts three days.
Louis-Philippe i of the House of Orléans is crowned King of France. The July Monarchy is initially progressive but eventually becomes more conservative.
On the night of 28 November 1830, nationalists in Poland revolt against the regime of Czar Nicholas i of Russia. More than 50,000 Poles flee to western Europe, with a large Polish community forming in Paris. Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849) is one of the refugees.
Ary Scheffer and fame
Notre-Dame-de-la-
CDAS /// Association
Diocésaine de Paris
sculptures by the princess into a museum in her memory. Comte Rodolphe Apponyi, an attaché at the Austrian Embassy in Paris, visited in 1844 and left a description of it in which he terms Marie’s work appearing to Scheffer to be ‘relics’. 21
The death of the Duc d’Orléans on 13 July 1842 again threw Ary Scheffer into a state of great distress. He said as much to his uncle Arnoldus Lamme in a letter of 8 August 1842, describing the prince’s cruel death: ‘As you know, this misfortune affects me most cruelly in every respect’. 22 Augustin Thierry, the painter’s friend who had
Cenotaph for the Duke of Orléans
Compassion Church (Paris)
become librarian to the Duc d’Orléans on Scheffer’s recommendation, emphasises the seriousness of this loss which followed the death of Scheffer’s mother three years earlier: ‘I sympathise with you, my poor Scheffer, this is for you a second loss which will enlarge the bleeding wound in your heart and cause in your life a vacuum impossible to fill. You loved the prince for twenty years, he held you in most tender affection and limitless trust’. 23
Scheffer was to sublimate his despair by devoting his energies to the creation of a cenotaph for the prince’s memorial chapel, to be erected on the spot where the accident happened. The prince’s remains were to be buried in the royal necropolis in Dreux. 24 The architect PierreLéonard François Fontaine was commissioned to design the chapel, a church in the Byzantine style in the shape of a Greek cross. Modest in size, the chapel possesses an exceptional group of fourteen stained glass windows, to cartoons designed by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres. Scheffer announces in the same letter of 8 August 1842 that he has been commissioned to produce a painting to decorate the chapel (whose construction was swiftly planned) as well as ‘to direct the execution of the tomb’, at the request of Queen Marie-Amélie. 25 Scheffer seems to have worked on the painting and the model of the dead prince (p. 142) simultaneously — the compositions are so closely related. He rapidly sketches on paper the outline of his composition, from the outset paying most attention to the recumbent figure (p. 143). The queen soon expresses her wish that an angel at prayer, sometimes called the Angel of Compassion , created by her late daughter Marie d’Orléans, should be added to the figure. Having
JEAN-AUGUSTE-DOMINIQUE INGRES
Hope (1842) oil on canvas
116.5 x 117 cm
Musée du Louvre (Paris)
ARY SCHEFFER
Ferdinand-Philippe, Duke of Orléans on his Deathbed (1842) oil on canvas
80 x 40 cm
Dordrechts Museum
Cornelia Marjolin-Scheffer bequest (1899)
Massacre at the Roman Forum, presumably the assassination of Emperor Galba (c. 1812) oil on canvas
50.4 x 64 cm Dordrechts Museum purchased with the support of the Dordrechts Museum Business Club, VriendenLoterij and Vereniging Dordrechts Museum (2024)
THÉODORE GÉRICAULT
PIERRE GUÉRIN
Andromache (c. 1802) oil on canvas
99.5 x 80.6 cm
Musées d’Angers
ARY SCHEFFER
Portrait of Princess Marie of Orléans (c. 1838) oil on canvas
118 x 73.5 cm
Dordrechts Museum donated by Dordrechts Museum Business Club (1999)
ARY SCHEFFER
Portrait of Félicie de Fauveau (1829) oil on panel
103.3 x 72 cm
Musée du Louvre (Paris)
ARY SCHEFFER
Gretchen at the Spinning Wheel – Goethe, Faust 1, 15 (c. 1831)
oil on panel
22.5 x 17.3 cm
Dordrechts Museum
Cornelia Marjolin-Scheffer bequest (1899)
EUGÈNE DELACROIX
Gretchen at the Spinning Wheel (1828) lithograph
485 x 320 mm
Rijksmuseum (Amsterdam)
donated by Mr A. Allebé, Amsterdam
ARY SCHEFFER
Faust in his cabinet – Goethe, Faust, 1, 3 (c. 1831)
oil on panel
22.6 x 17.6 cm
Dordrechts Museum
Cornelia Marjolin-Scheffer bequest (1899)
EUGÈNE DELACROIX
Mephisto Appears to Faust (1828) lithograph
485 x 315 mm
Rijksmuseum (Amsterdam)
donated by Mr A. Allebé, Amsterdam
CORNELIA MARJOLIN-SCHEFFER
Bust of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (undated)
marble
64 x 47 x 37 cm
Dordrechts Museum
Cornelia Marjolin-Scheffer bequest (1899)
ARY SCHEFFER
Augustine and Monica (1849) oil on canvas
145.5 x 117.5 cm
Dordrechts Museum
Cornelia Marjolin-Scheffer bequest (1899)
HORACE VERNET
Jeremiah on the Ruins of Jerusalem (1844) oil on canvas
35 x 27 cm
Amsterdam Museum
This publication accompanies the exhibition LIBERTÉ! Ary Scheffer & French Romanticism at the Dordrechts Museum, on show from 19 October 2024 through 23 March 2025.
Exhibition
Concept: Quirine van der Meer Mohr and Sanne Baar
Design : Jelena Stefanovic (Studio OTW) and Sappho Panhuys (Studio Vrijdag)
Publication
Compiled and edited by: Quirine van der Meer Mohr
Text editor : Lilian Eefting
Translations: Caroline Beamish (French – English), Billy Nolan (Dutch – English), Hilde Pauwels (French – Dutch)
Project manager : Sanne Baar
Picture editor : Mieke Brand
Publisher: Waanders Publishers, Zwolle with Dordrechts Museum
Authors: Sanne Baar, Bruno Chenique, Stéphanie Deschamps-Tan, Maarten Doorman, Mayken Jonkman, Quirine van der Meer Mohr, Nina Reid, Gaëlle Rio
Graphic design : Jantijn van den Heuvel
Lithography: Benno Slijkhuis, Wilco Art Books
Printing : Wilco Art Books, Amersfoort
Paper : 135 g Condat Mat isbn 978 94 6262 584 6
LIBERTÉ! Ary Scheffer & French Romanticism was made possible with support from:
The images have been made available by the owners or lenders credited in the photo captions.
Photographs of works from the collection of the Dordrechts Museum were taken by Jørgen M. Snoep and Peter den Ouden. Musée du Louvre, Chateau de Versailles en Musée national Eugène Delacroix: ©GrandPalaisRmn; other museums © of the museums
p. 142 J.J. Ader; p. 60, 61, 112 P. Antoine; p. 107 Alain Basset; p. 140 Daniel Arnaudet / Gérard Blot; p. 135 Daniel Arnaudet / Jean Schormans; p. 39 Michèle Bellot, Jean Schormans; p. 31, 33, 71, 83 Gérard Bolt; p. 51 Alexander Burzik; p. 150, 165 Christian Devleeschauwer; p. 27, 164 Adrien Didierjean; p. 15 Adrien Didierjean, Mathieu Rabeau; p. 55 Christophe Fouin; p. 121 Frédéric Jaulmes; p. 13 Chr. Kempf; p. 47 Hervé Lewandowski; p. 160 Arnaud Loubry; p. 32 Thierry Le Mage; p. 124 Jean-Marc Moser; p. 23, 87 (above) René-Gabriel Ojéda; p. 119 Stavros Psiroukis; p. 24, 49, 69 (left) Franck Raux; p. 93 (above) Mathieu Rabeau; p. 131 Alberto Ricci; p. 174 (right) Guy Roumagnac; p. 136 Annika Roy; p. 132 Patricia Touzard; p. 29, 32,96, 139 Michel Urtado; p. 36 A. Vaquero; p. 117 Denis Vidalie; p. 86 Bram Vreugdenhil; p. 170 Christof Weber
Thanks to:
All the lenders for supplying information and a special thanks to: Sebastien Allard, Catherine Arnold, Diederik Backhuys, Valérie Bajou, John Harvey Bergen, Markus Bertsch, Rhea Blok, Vincent Bouat-Ferlier, Wilfred de Bruijn, Eveline Deneer, Anne Esnault, Leo Ewals, Côme Fabre, Jerôme Farigoule, Ophélie Ferlier-Bouat, Alice Gandin, Bruno Gaudichon, Audrey Gay-Mazuel, Astrid Grange, Gabrielle Grawe, Jan Jaap Heij, Carole Hirardot, Mariska de Jonge, Mayken Jonkman, Stefanie Klerks, Frédéric Lacaille, Bastien Lopez, Ger Luijten †
Celine Marchand, Tom van der Molen, Manon van der Mullen, Sander Paarlberg, Stéphane Paccoud, Paul Perrin, Carl Johan Olsson, Gaëlle Rio, Pieter Roelofs, Peter Schoon, Lisa Smit, Lidwien Speleers, Pierre Stépanoff, Renske Suyver, Annelies Terbrugge, Winnie Urban, Florence Viguier-Dutheil, Laëtitia Vincent-Genod, Olivia Voisin, Annette de Vries, Robert Wenley.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or in any other way, without the prior permission of the publisher. The publisher has done its utmost to observe the rights applying to all photographic material as required by law. Those who nevertheless believe they can assert rights are requested to contact the publisher.
This book is also available in Dutch under the title LIBERTÉ! Ary Scheffer & de Franse Romantiek isbn 978 94 6262 583 9 nur 644
© 2024 Waanders Uitgevers b.v., Zwolle; Dordrechts Museum, the authors
www.dordrechtsmuseum.nl www.waanders.nl
