Saturday, February 26, 2022

18 works, PORTRAIT OF A LADY, The Execution of Charlotte Corday, with Footnotes. #187

Hendrik Scheffer  (1798–1862)
L'arrestation de Charlotte Corday/ Arrest of Charlotte Corday in 1793, c. 1830
Oil on canvas
Height: 130 cm (51.1 in) ; Width: 163 cm (64.1 in)
Musée Lambinet

Painted in the heart of the summer of 1830 during the fall of the Bourbons, i.e. thirty-seven years after the death of Marat, the Arrest of Charlotte Corday is a work that was purchased by the State in a desire for national cohesion. Exhibited at the Luxembourg Palace for the benefit of the wounded of the July Revolution, it was seen by thousands of people at the Salon of 1831. Muse of the July Monarchy, Charlotte Corday is shown impassive despite the unpredictability of the sans -breeches that surround her and the aggressive presence of the dog in the foreground. The young dark-haired woman with diaphanous skin, dressed in a simple blue cloth dress and wearing a white cotton cap, there is nothing to suggest the criminal who put an end to the days of the "People's Friend". This painting, inspired by a play by Ducange and Bourgeois, is considered an allegory of the first months of the Orléans regime, brought to power by a popular dynamic. The painter strips his subject of all psychological realism and shows the culprit, with an absent gaze, crossing the composition from right to left. More on this painting

Hendrik Scheffer (The Hague, 25 September 1798 – Paris, 15 March 1862) was a Dutch painter in the Romantic tradition who lived in France for most of his life. In France he is usually known as Henri Scheffer.

His work was much sought after in his lifetime. He mainly painted genre pieces and portraits which were finely crafted. His work was exhibited at the Salon from 1824 onwards and was heavily criticised by Charles Baudelaire and Théophile Gautier.

Scheffers best known work is probably a picture portraying the arrest of Charlotte Corday (now in the Musée Lambinet) (See above). More on Hendrik Scheffer

Charlotte Corday, born Marie-Anne-Charlotte Corday d'Armont was born in Normandy on July 27, 1768 and was executed on July 17, 1793 in Paris. She is largely remembered as the assassin of French Revolutionary leader, Jean-Paul Marat while he rested in his bath at home. She was born into a poor but noble family in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alps region in the south east of France, but she was being educated in Caens which is in Normandy in the North. She began going to political meetings there and became inspired by the ideas of the Revolution, and in particular the Girondin faction. The Girondins were a more moderate faction that was in favor of a Constitutional government. They represented the educated provincial middle class of France (lawyers, merchants etc.) and they stood against the "Paris mob" who tended to be in line with the opposing political party, the Jacobins. 

Tony Robert-Fleury  (1837–1912)
Charlotte Corday à Caen en 1793
Oil on canvas
Height: 210 cm (82.6 in); Width: 125 cm (49.2 in)
Musée Bonnat-Helleu

The heroine is here strolling in her garden at home, near Caen, reading Plutarch as she psychs herself up to go to Paris and change history.

Tony Robert-Fleury (1 September 1837 – 8 December 1911) was a French painter, known primarily for historical scenes. He was also a prominent art teacher, with many famous artists among his students.

He was born just outside Paris, and studied under his father Joseph-Nicolas Robert-Fleury and under Paul Delaroche and Léon Cogniet at the École des Beaux-Arts (School of Fine Arts) in Paris.

In 1875, Robert-Fleury painted Charlotte Corday at Caen, which shows the woman coming to the conclusion that Marat needed to be murdered. In 1882 he painted Vauban donnant le plan des fortifications de Belfort where the celebrated engineer is represented in Louis XIV costume reviewing maps and designs, while in the background laborers are building.

Robert-Fleury became president of the Société des artistes français in succession to Bouguereau. He was honoured with Commander of the Legion of Honour in 1907. In 1908 he was elected president of the Taylor Foundation, a position he held until the end of his life. He acquired a great reputation and is renowned for his historical compositions, portraits and genre scenes. More on Tony Robert-Fleury

Jean-Jacques Scherrer (1855-1916)
Charlotte Corday in Caen (1894)
Musée Charles-de-Bruyères, Remiremont, France

In this painting Corday is a heroine who goes out to meet the crowds of supporters on a balcony in Caen.

Jean-Jacques Scherrer (1855–1916) was a French academic painter. Now largely forgotten, his historical paintings earned him considerable attention in his day. Born in Lutterbach in Alsace, Scherrer was brought up by his uncle following the death of his father when he was only 6 years old. After leaving school, he worked at the Haeffley factory in Pfastatt where his talent for drawing was noticed by one of the directors. In 1871, after the Treaty of Frankfurt, he chose the French nationality and moved to Paris where he was taught by Pierre-Jules Cavelier in the studio of Félix-Joseph Barrias. Barrias encouraged him to continue his studies at the École des Beaux-Arts where he came under the guidance of Alexandre Cabanel, whose academic style he closely followed.

Although Scherrer began to exhibit in 1877, it was his Résurrection du fils de la veuve de Naïm at the Salon de l'Académie de Peinture which established his reputation. In 1881, his painting L'Assassinat du maréchal Brune was received with particular success, earning him a stipendium which allowed him to spend two years in Italy. On his return to Paris in 1883, he painted Beaurepaire, la capitulation de Verdun, le 2 septembre 1792. He went on to receive awards for L'Entrée de Jeanne d'Arc à Orléans, victorieuse des Anglais (1887) and Isabeau de Bavière (1889), exhibited the same year at the Exposition Universelle, and Charlotte Corday à Caen (1892). At the end of the century, after decorating the SEITA pavilion for the Exposition Universelle (1900), he was made a knight of the Legion of Honour. More on Jean-Jacques Scherrer

Lucien-Étienne Mélingue  (1841–1889)
Jean-Paul Marat, c. 1879
Oil on canvas
Musée de la Révolution française

Lucien-Étienne Mélingue was born in Paris. His father , Étienne Marin Mélingue , was an actor and sculptor , his mother , Théodorine Thiesset , known as “  Mme Théodorine  ” was an actress . He was admitted in 1843 to the Comédie Française where she played the role of Guanhumara, in The Burgraves of Victor Hugo.

Lucien was a pupil of Léon Cogniet , the contemporary of Jean - Léon Gérôme and exhibited for the first time at the salon of 1861 . Follower of a realistic style , who also turns out to be an expressive colorist , Mélingue was for a long time one of those painters considered academic that critics and the public have neglected. In his time , however , he enjoyed  a reputation for esteem which earned him encouraging reviews and the Legion of Honor in 1880 .  His painting representing Robespierre wounded and lying on a table in the premises of the Committee of Public Safety made a great impression on the public of the salon de 1877. More on Lucien-Étienne Mélingue

Corday felt that the Jacobins were too radical and she wanted to save the Revolution by eliminating their most popular leader, Jean-Paul Marat. With this in mind, she traveled to Paris and insisted on seeing Marat, promising either to divulge the names of traitors of the Revolution or to plead for the lives of her Girondin acquaintances.

Santiago Rebull (1829-1902)
The Death of Marat, c. 1875
Oil on canvas
58.7 x 66.3 cm
Private collection

Santiago Rebull Gordillo (1829-1902) was a 19th-century Mexican painter . Rebull entered the Academy of San Carlos in Mexico City at the age of 18, later being a teacher and director there. 

Rebull, from a Catalan family, was born on a ship on his way to Spain by virtue of the expulsion order of the Spanish in 1829. After studying with Pelegrín Clavé at the Academy of San Carlos, he received a pension for his work "The Death of Abel" to continue his studies at the Academy of Saint Luke in Rome where he spent seven years in the 1850s.

The death of Marat (1875), is considered his masterpiece; he worked on it for three years. More on Santiago Rebull Gordillo

Regardless of how she managed to gain access to Marat, she was allowed in while he was bathing (he suffered from a skin condition) and she plunged a knife directly into his heart causing his instant death. 

Paul-Jacques-Aimé Baudry  (1828–1886)
Charlotte Corday (The Assassination of Marat), c. 1860
Oil on canvas
Height: 203 cm (79.9 in); Width: 154 cm (60.6 in)
Nantes Museum of Arts

On July 13 1793, Charlotte Corday assassinated Jean-Paul Marat, who was a doctor, physician, politician and deputy at the National Convention. This painting recreates the moments after his murder. Marat is motionless in his bathtub, while Charlotte Corday leaves the scene of the crime, showing no remorse.

Paul-Jacques-Aimé Baudry (7 November 1828 – 17 January 1886) was a French painter, born in La Roche-sur-Yon in the Vendée. He studied art under Michel Martin Drolling and won the Prix de Rome in 1850 for his picture of Zenobia found on the banks of the Araxes.

His talent from the first revealed itself as strictly academical, full of elegance and grace, but somewhat lacking originality. In the course of his residence in Italy, Baudry derived strong inspiration from Italian art with the mannerism of Correggio, as was evident in the two works he exhibited in the Salon of 1857, which were purchased for the Luxembourg: The Martyrdom of a Vestal Virgin and The Child.

Once only did he attempt an historical picture, Charlotte Corday after the murder of Marat (1861) (See above); and returned by preference to the former class of subjects or to painting portraits of illustrious men of his day.

The works that crowned Baudry's reputation were his mural decorations, which show much imagination and a high artistic gift for color, as may be seen. in the frescoes in the Paris Court of Cassation. at the château of Chantilly, and some private residences the Hôtel Fould and Hôtel Paivabut, above all, in the decorations of the foyer of the Opera Garnier.

These, more than thirty paintings in all, and among them compositions figurative of dancing and music, occupied the painter for ten years. Baudry was a member of the Académie des beaux-arts, succeeding Jean-Victor Schnetz.

Baudry died in Paris in 1886. Two of his colleagues, Paul Dubois and Marius Jean Mercié, co-operating with his brother, Baudry the architect, erected his funeral monument in the Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris (1890). More on Paul-Jacques-Aimé Baudry

Jules-Charles Aviat  (1844–1931)
Corday and Marat, circa 1880
Oil on canvas
Museum of the French Revolution

Jules-Charles Aviat , pseudonym of Jules-Charles Mauperrin , is a French painter , born in Brienne-le-Château ( Aube ) onJune 26 , 1844and died in Périgueux ( Dordogne ) onJanuary 23 , 19311 .

Jules Aviat left to study in Rome from 1867 to 1870. There he met and became a pupil of the director of the Académie de France in Rome , Ernest Hébert , who assisted him with his advice.

Towards the end of his life, Jules Aviat retired to Périgueux where he continued to paint the notables of the region, as well as the green landscapes of Périgord. The Perigord Art and Archeology Museum in Périgueux retains several of his works. 

He died onJanuary  23 , 1931 in Périgueux and is buried in the North cemetery of this city. More on Jules-Charles Aviat

Jacques-Louis David  (1748–1825)
The Death of Marat, c. 1793
Oil on canvas
Height: 165 cm (64.9 in); Width: 128 cm (50.3 in)
Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium 

Marat still holds his "weapon", the pen, in hand, represented here very close to the still bloody weapon of the crime. David was asked to organize the funeral pomp and paint a memorial picture. From classical mythology which until then constituted his gallery of models, David passes here to a hero of contemporary history. He idealizes his hero by sticking to strict realism. The painter is at this time the most prominent French artist but also a personal friend of the victim; both voted, at the Convention, for the death of Louis XVI. More on this painting

Jacques-Louis David  (1748–1825)
Detail; The Death of Marat, c. 1793
Oil on canvas
Height: 165 cm (64.9 in); Width: 128 cm (50.3 in)
Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium 

In his left hand Marat holds Charlotte Corday's deceitful note that reads (in David's own handwriting): 'July 13 1793: Marie-Anne-Charlotte Corday to citizen Marat/ It is enough for me to be truly wretched to have a right to your kindness'. Corday's actual note to Marat had ended: I am being persecuted for the sake of Liberty; I am unhappy, that is sufficient to give me the right to your protection', and the change in wording suggests that she accomplished her murderous deed by appealing to Marat's kind-hearted sympathy. More on this painting

Jacques-Louis David (30 August 1748 – 29 December 1825) was a French painter in the Neoclassical style, considered to be the preeminent painter of the era. In the 1780s his cerebral brand of history painting marked a change in taste away from Rococo frivolity toward classical austerity and severity and heightened feeling, harmonizing with the moral climate of the final years of the Ancien Régime.

David later became an active supporter of the French Revolution and friend of Maximilien Robespierre (1758–1794), and was effectively a dictator of the arts under the French Republic. Imprisoned after Robespierre's fall from power, he aligned himself with yet another political regime upon his release: that of Napoleon, the First Consul of France. At this time he developed his Empire style, notable for its use of warm Venetian colours. After Napoleon's fall from Imperial power and the Bourbon revival, David exiled himself to Brussels, then in the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, where he remained until his death. David had many pupils, making him the strongest influence in French art of the early 19th century, especially academic Salon painting. More on Jacques-Louis David

Jean-Joseph Weerts (1847-1927)
The Assassination of Marat, c. 1880
Oil on canvas
Musée La Piscine, Roubaix

This patriotically-inspired Assassination of Marat, painted in 1880, presents a revised version of historical events, with Charlotte Corday portrayed as a dangerous terrorist execrated by the good people. Charlotte Corday is still holding the bloody knife and, with complete disregard for history, a horde of hysterical revolutionaries burst into the room to arrest her. There is nonetheless a sentimentality, a grandiloquence and a kitsch profusion of color that are the trademarks of Weerts. More on this painting

Jean-Joseph Weerts was born in Roubaix in 1846 to Belgian immigrant parents who had moved to northern France to work in the textile industry. His father, an excellent draughtsman, gave him lessons, later sending him to the Academy in Roubaix. The young Jean-Joseph was gifted and won a scholarship to study at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris where he joined the studio of Cabanel. This marked the beginning of a perfect academic career involving patriotic and edifying historical painting, portraits of famous people and religious painting. He became one of the most prominent artists of the Third Republic, a member of the Conseil Supérieur des Beaux-Arts and Commander of the Légion d'Honneur. In 1924, he established the Weerts painting prize and in 1927, the year of his death, he opened his own museum in Roubaix. More on Jean-Joseph Weerts

After Charles Louis Lucien Müller (French, 1815–1892)
CHARLOTTE CORDAY IN PRISON
Oil on canvas
108 x 86.4 cm. (42.5 x 34 in.)
Private collection

Charles Louis Müller (also known as Müller de Paris) (Paris 22 December 1815 – 10 January 1892 Paris) was a French painter.

He was the pupil of Léon Cogniet, Baron Gros and others in the École des Beaux-Arts. In 1837 he exhibited his first picture, Christmas Morning. From 1850 to 1853 he directed the manufactory of Gobelin tapestries. In 1864 he became a member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts of the Institut de France, succeeding Jean-Hippolyte Flandrin.

He was a fecund producer of historic pictures and portraits. Among his works are Heliogabalus (1841), Primavera (1846), Haydée (1848), Lady Macbeth, and his masterpiece, Calling Out the Last Victims of the Reign of Terror at the Prison of Saint-Lazare, with portraits of the most illustrious victims). Also notable are Vive l'Empereur, based on a poem by Méry about an episode in the battle before Paris, March 30, 1814 (1855), Marie Antoinette (1857), A Mass During the Reign of Terror (1863), Desdemona (1868), Lanjuinais at the Tribune (1869), The Madness of King Lear (1875), Charlotte Corday in Prison (1875) (See above), Mater Dolorosa (1877), The Martyrdom of St. Bartholomew and The Massacre of the Innocents.

He executed frescoes for the Salle d'État and the Galerie d'Apollon in the Louvre, and for the ceiling of the Salon Denon. More on Charles Louis Müller

Regardless of how she managed to gain access to Marat, she was allowed in while he was bathing (he suffered from a skin condition) and she plunged a knife directly into his heart causing his instant death.


Corday was arrested immediately and underwent three separate cross-examinations by senior revolutionary judicial officials. She stressed that she was a republican and had been so even before the Revolution, citing the values of ancient Rome as an ideal model.

BATTLE Eugene (attributed to)
Portrait of Charlotte Corday (1768-1793)
Oil on canvas
Height in cm 60.5; Width in cm 50
Lambinet Museum - Versailles

"The artist who drafted the portrait of Charlotte Corday in the tribunal was M. Hauer, painter and National Guard officer for the Theatre Francais. Being back in her cell, she asked the janitor to allow him to enter to finish his work. M. Hauer was let in. Charlotte thanked him of the interest he took of her fate and posed in front of him with serenity." Lamartine

Emery Duchesne (1847-?)
Title Hauer peigant le portrait de Charlotte Corday/ 
Hauer painting the portrait of Charlotte Corday, c. 1880
Oil on canvas
242 × 222 cm (95.2 × 87.4 in)
Musée d'art et d'histoire de Lisieux

I have no information for Emery Duchesne.

Following her sentencing Corday asked the court if her portrait could be painted, purportedly to record her true self. She made her request pleading, "Since I still have a few moments to live, might I hope, citizens, that you will allow me to have myself painted."  Given permission, she selected as the artist a National Guard officer, Jean-Jacques Hauer, who had already begun sketching her from the gallery of the courtroom. Hauer's likeness (see above) was completed shortly before Corday was summoned to the tumbril, after she had viewed it and suggested a few changes

Arturo Michelena (1863–1898)
Charlotte Corday, c. 1889
Oil on canvas
234 x 315.5 cm
Galería de Arte Nacional, Caracas, Venezuela

Michelena shows Hauer at the right, work on his portrait completed just in time for his model’s execution. A jailer is preoccupied in lighting his pipe, and an executioner’s assistant right behind Corday carries the scarlet overblouse (rather than Duchesne’s red dress) she had to wear to denote her status as traitor.

Francisco Arturo Michelena Castillo (16 June 1863  – 29 July 1898) was a Venezuelan painter known for his historical and genre scenes and portraits.

Michelena learned to paint first under his father, and quickly showed great aptitude. In 1874, at the age of eleven, he made his first self-portrait. At age 12, he produced ten illustrations for the book "Customs of Venezuela".

Arturo travelled to Paris, to study at the Académie Julian under the history painter and great teacher, Jean-Paul Laurens. There he made friendship with with other celebrity Venezuelan painters.

In 1889 Arturo returned to Venezuela, where he was triumphantly received. The government commissioned him a work in honor of General Paez. During this period, he gained more skills, with great mastery in using color and defining the natural movement of portraying subjects. After a second stay in Paris, having tuberculosis, he returned to Venezuela, where he became fashionable portraitist. More on Arturo Michelena

Edward Matthew Ward (British, 1816-1879)
Charlotte Corday in the prison of the Conciergerie, while preparing for execution
Watercolour heightened with white
53.1 x 44.8cm (20 7/8 x 17 5/8in)
Private collection

Edward Matthew Ward was an English historical painter. His mother was a sister of James and Horace Smith, the authors of 'Rejected Addresses.' His art proclivities early developed themselves, and in 1830, he obtained the silver palette of the Society of Arts. He was in debted to Chantrey and Wilkie for much valuable advice and encouragement, and in 1835, entered the schools of the Royal Academy. Before he was twenty he produced a series of illustrations to the famous jeu d'esprit of his two uncles. In 1836,he went to Rome, and studied in the Academy of St. Luke, where in 1838, he was awarded the silver medal for historical composition. After a stay of three years in Italy, he made his way to Munich, and worked on fresco painting for a time under the direction of Cornelius. On his return to England he made his appearance on the walls of the Royal Academy in1839, with a picture of 'Cimabue and Giotto.' He soon devoted himself to the class of subjects which has been termed "historical anecdote." More on Edward Matthew Ward

All accounts attest to a brave and dignified death. The assassination of Marat was memorialized in the famous painting, Death of Marat, by Jacques-Louis David which hangs in the Louvre (See above). 

Julian Russell Story (1857-1919)
Charlotte Corday, c. 1889
I have no further description, at this time

This picture shows how the convict is put on before execution the red shirt put on by those sentenced for execution.

When her arm was tied up, there was an episode in which she asks the executioner, Sanson, "Can I wear gloves to prevent my wrists from being scratched?" Sanson smiled and said, "I will tie it up so that it doesn't hurt." " Arturo Michelena, 1889," Sanson later said, "She was beautiful. Not only because of her appearance. I couldn't believe she was resolute and adorable until the end

The executioner Sanson spoke in detail about the last hours of Charlotte Corday's life in his memoirs. According to him, he had not seen such courage in those sentenced to death since the execution of de La Barre in 1766. All the way from the Conciergerie to the place of execution, Charlotte stood in the cart, refusing to sit down. When Sanson, having risen, blocked the guillotine from Corday, she asked him to move away, since she had never seen this structure before. 

James Edwin McConnell, English (1903–95)
Charlotte Corday is led to the guillotine
Private Collection

James Edwin McConnell (15 July 1903 - 4 May 1995) was a British book and magazine cover artist best known for Western and historical subjects.

Born in Bedlington, Northumberland, McConnell worked for a local blockmaker before moving to London where he continued in the same trade whilst studying part-time at St. Martin's School. He went freelance in 1933, working through the Partridge Agency with whom he remained until 1953.

McConnell's early freelance work was in advertising and designing book covers. After the Second World War he established himself as one of the leading artists for the burgeoning paperback market. 

McConnell painted over 1,000 covers and frontispiece illustrations. He also contributed to the artwork in the American Roll of Honour, which lies in the American Chapel, St Paul's Cathedral, London.

As he was primarily a paperback cover artist, McConnell has rarely come to the attention of critics, although an exhibition of his Western artwork was held at the Association of Illustrators Gallery in London in 1976. More on James Edwin McConnell

Initially her violent act scandalized Paris and some felt it reflected poorly on women revolutionaries. Many women distanced themselves from her for this reason. Her intention to weaken the power of the Jacobins was a failure. Marat gained martyr status overnight and the Girondins as a faction were demonized and eliminated during the subsequent Jacobin-led Terror. However, she lives on in France's popular memory through numerous works of art, poetry, plays and literature. She was given the moniker the "angel of assassination" by French writer Alphonse de Lamartine who dedicated part of his series, Histoire des Girondins (1847) to her. Regardless of her political views, Charlotte Corday changed the way women were viewed during the Revolution in terms of personal agency and having the courage of one's convictions. More on Charlotte Corday

James Gillray
The heroic Charlotte la Cordé, upon her trial, at the bar of the revolutionary tribunal of Paris, July 17, 1793
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division

Print shows Charlotte Corday standing before the judges of the Revolutionary Tribunal with the body of Marat which lying between them. She responds to the Tribunal, "Wretches, I did not expect to appear before you - I always thought that I should be delivered up to the rage of the people, torn in pieces, & that my head, stuck on the top of a pike, would have preceded Marat on his state bed, to serve as a rallying point to Frenchmen, if there still are any worthy of that name. But, happen what will, if I have the honours of the guillotine, & my clay-cold remains are buried, they will soon have conferred upon them the honours of the Pantheon; and my memory will be more honoured in France than that of Judith in Bethulia."

Title continues: For having rid the world of that monster of Atheism and Murder, the Regicide Marat, whom she stabbed in a bath, where he had retired on account of a Leprosy, with which Heaven had begun the punishment of his Crimes. "The noble enthusiasm with which this woman met the charge, & the elevated disdain with which she treated the self-created Tribunal, struck the whole assembly with terror & astonishment." More on this print

James Gillray (13 August 1756 – 1 June 1815) was a British caricaturist and printmaker famous for his etched political and social satires, mainly published between 1792 and 1810. Many of his works are held at the National Portrait Gallery in London.

Gillray has been called "the father of the political cartoon", with his works satirizing George III, Napoleon, prime ministers and generals Regarded as being one of the two most influential cartoonists, the other being William Hogarth, Gillray's wit and humour, knowledge of life, fertility of resource, keen sense of the ludicrous, and beauty of execution, at once gave him the first place among caricaturists. More on James Gillray




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