Luxury After the Terror 9780271093093

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Luxury After the Terror

Iris Moon

Luxury After 

THE

TERROR

T h e P e n n s y lva n i a S tat e U n i v e r s i t y P r e s s , U n i v e r s i t y Pa r k , P e n n s y lva n i a

This publication has been supported by The French Porcelain Society. This publication has been supported by The Decorative Arts Trust. Publication of the book was supported by the Organization of Part-Time Faculty Adjunct Professional Development Fund at Cooper Union. Frontispiece: La Pensée Directoire ou la lanterne magique, ca. 1795. Fan with image of a couple contemplating the projection of a pansy, in the center of which are transparent profiles of Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, and the dauphin. EV0169, Musée Carnavalet, Paris. Photo: Paris Musées. Library of Congress Cataloging-​in-​Publication Data Names: Moon, Iris, author. Title: Luxury after the terror / Iris Moon. Description: University Park, Pennsylvania : The Pennsylvania State University Press, [2022] | Includes bibliographical references and index. Summary: “Explores the production, circulation, and survival of ​French luxury after the death of ​Louis XVI by focusing on makers of decorative art objects who had strong ties to the monarchy and how they navigated the French Revolution”—Provided by publisher. Identifiers: LCCN 2021048003 | ISBN 9780271091617 (cloth) Subjects: LCSH: Decorative arts—France—History—18th century. | Luxury goods industry—France—History—18th century. | France—History—Revolution, 1789–1799—Art and the revolution. | France—History—Revolution, 1789–1799—Influence. Classification: LCC NK947 .M595 2022 | DDC 745​.0944​ /09033—dc23/eng/20211115 LC record available at https://​lccn​.loc​.gov​/2021048003

Copyright © 2022 Iris Moon All rights reserved Printed in Lithuania by BALTO Print Published by The Pennsylvania State University Press, University Park, PA 16802–1003 The Pennsylvania State University Press is a member of the Association of University Presses. It is the policy of The Pennsylvania State University Press to use acid-​free paper. Publications on uncoated stock satisfy the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Material, ansi z39.48–1992.

À L.M.

List of Illustrations  ix Acknowledgments xiii

introduction 1

1 Contents

Death and Dispersal: The 1793–94 Revolutionary Auctions at Versailles  17

2 Henry Auguste: Precious Metals in the Age of Terror  41 3

Jean-​Démosthène Dugourc: Political Fantasies of the Arabesque  71

4

Aubert-​Henri-​Joseph Parent: Carving in Exile  107

5

Alexandre Brongniart: Fragile Terrains  135

Coda 171 Notes 175 Bibliography 187 Index 201

Color Plates (following page 112)

1. 2. 3.

4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

I l lu s t r at i o n s

9. 10.

11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23.

Jacques Gondoin and François-​Toussaint Foliot armchair Louis-​Léopold Boilly, assumed portrait of ​ Maximilien Robespierre Jean-​Jacques-​François Le Barbier, Beauvais Manufactory, America from The Four Continents tapestry set Tapestry woven from needlepoint fragments by Marie-​Antoinette and Madame Élisabeth, 1791–93 Henry Auguste, “Beckford-​Béhague” ewer, 1790 François Gérard, Family of the Goldsmith Henri Auguste Joined Together Around a Table, 1798 Robert Jacques François Lefèvre, Jean-​Baptiste-​ Claude Odiot, 1822 Henry Auguste (attributed), heart reliquary of Madeleine-​Julie Coustou, ca. 1797 Henry Auguste, casket with figure of ​Morpheus, ca. 1793–98 Jean-​Démosthène Dugourc and Urbain Jaume, advertisement for Nouvelles Cartes de la République Française, 1793–94 Jean-​Démosthène Dugourc, embroidery design for a pocket and vest, 1780s Jean-​Démosthène Dugourc (design), wallpaper from the Hôtel Vaupalière, ca. 1790 Jean-​Démosthène Dugourc and Urbain Jaume, “Egalité de Couleurs” card, 1793 Camille Pernon, Verdures de Vatican silk panel, ca. 1799 Jean-​Démosthène Dugourc, design for a decorative panel, 1787 and 1808 Aubert-​Henri-​Joseph Parent, carving of ​Louis XVI, ca. 1795 Aubert-​Henri-​Joseph Parent, Allégorie de l’amour de Louis XVI pour ses sujets, 1777 Aubert-​Henri-​Joseph Parent, drawing of a vase on a classical pedestal, ca. 1784 Aubert-​Henri-​Joseph Parent, floral still-​life relief, 1784 Sèvres Manufactory, Louis XVI dinner service, 1783–93 Sèvres Manufactory, déjeuner (tea set), June–July 1794 Sèvres Manufactory, sundial, 1794–95 François Louis Swebach-​Desfontaines, plate from Histoire naturelle, 1789

24. Dihl et Guérhard Manufactory, plate with shells on the shore, ca. 1789–97 25. Étienne-​Charles Le Guay, Dihl et Guérhard Manufactory, portrait of Christophe Dihl, 1797 26. Sèvres Manufactory, color palette from year VI, 1798 27. Jacques Barraband, Dihl et Guérhard Manufactory, Birds, 1798 28. Dihl et Guérhard Manufactory, a pair of vases with landscapes, ca. 1797–98 29. Georges Cuvier and Alexandre Brongniart, Carte geognostique des environs de Paris, 1810 30. La Pensée Directoire ou la lanterne magique, ca. 1795

Figures

1. Villeneuve, Matière à reflection pour les jongleurs couronnées, 1793  2 2. Anonymous, Moyen expeditif du peuple français pour démeubler un aristocrate: 13 novembre 1790, 1790 5 3. Pierre-​Adrien Pâris, Plan of a former dovecote transformed into a residence, 1793  14 4. Poster of the Auction of ​Furnishings and Precious Effects at the former Château de Versailles, September 30, 1793  18 5. Anonymous, Saule pleureur, 1795  25 6. Jean-​Démosthène Dugourc, drawing of the arrival of the funeral procession with the remains of ​King Louis XVI and Queen Marie-​Antoinette, 1815  26 7. Jean-​Henri Riesener, drop-​front secretary, 1783  34 8. Anonymous, Président d’un comité révolutionnaire, après la levée d’un scelé, 1794–95  35 9. Sèvres Manufactory, cup and saucer, ca. 1780–85  38 10. Jean-​Guillaume Moitte, Jean-​Baptiste Lucien, and Jean Louis Charles Pauquet, Hommage à la deuxième legislature, 1791  42 11. Henry Auguste, “Beckford-​Béhague” ewer, 1790, detail 45 12. J. R. Lucotte, “Orfèvre Grossier,” 1771  47 13. Henry Auguste, design for a covered tureen on a footed stand  50 14. Jean-​Guillaume Moitte, design for a ewer with a Grecian mask, ca. 1790  51 15. Henry Auguste, pair of candelabra bearing the arms of the duke of ​York, 1788 or 1789  52

x

Illustrations

16. Jean Baptiste Louis Massard and Jean Baptiste Félix Massard, Premier frise de l’arc de triomphe, 1790  53 17. Augustin de Saint-​Aubin, Pierre Joseph Lorthior, assignat of 300 livres, April 16 and April 17, 1790 55 18. Revolutionary period marks of ​Henry Auguste, ca. 1794 59 19. Pierre Haly, Marie-​Antoinette Sacrifices the Heart of the Nobility on the Altar of the French Republic, ca. 1790, or possibly 1793  62 20. Henry Auguste, oval tureen and stand, 1789/1804 66 21. Jean-​Démosthène Dugourc, The Garden Façade of ​ Bagatelle, 1779  75 22. Jean-​Démosthène Dugourc, project for an ornament design for silk, ca. 1790  79 23. Jean-​Démosthène Dugourc, design for a chandelier, 1784 80 24. Jean-​Ferdinand Schwerdfeger, jewelry cabinet of Marie-​Antoinette, 1787  82 25. Jean-​Démosthène Dugourc, model for a royal jewel cabinet, ca. 1787  83 26. Jean-​Démosthène Dugourc, L’Air, from Arabesques, 1782 84 27. Jean-​Démosthène Dugourc, Venus ou la Coquetterie, from Arabesques, 1782  86 28. Donald W. Winnicott, squiggle game drawing  90 29. Anonymous, caricature showing Marie-​Antoinette as a leopard, late eighteenth century  91 30. Textile fragment, ca. 1792  92 31. Anonymous, Madame Sans Culotte, ca. 1792  94 32. Stockings with “Necker” pattern, ca. 1788–93  95 33. Étienne Jolivet (attributed), silk assignat of 500 livres, ca. 1792  95 34. Jean-​Démosthène Dugourc, The Festival of the Federation, 1790  97 35. Jean-​Démosthène Dugourc (letterhead design), circulaire du ministre de l’Intérieur, Laplace, 1799  98 36. Billet de confiance for three sols with Boutin’s signature, 1790–93  100 37. Jean-​Démosthène Dugourc, design for a chalet in Aranjuez, 1786–1803  104 38. Jean-​Démosthène Dugourc, Napoleon Bonaparte at the Champ de Mai, ca. 1815  105 39. Hercy, Robespierre guillotinant le boureau après avoir fait guillot.r tous les Français . . . cy gyt toute la France, 1794  108

40. Pierre-​Adrien Pâris, second project for a monument dedicated to the memory of ​Louis XVI, ca. 1818–19 110 41. Tilman Riemenschneider, seated bishop, ca. 1495 112 42. Aubert-​Henri-​Joseph Parent, study of a nude seen from behind, 1783  116 43. Aubert-​Henri-​Joseph Parent, Vase composé, posé sur un autel antique, 1788–89  117 44. Aubert-​Henri-​Joseph Parent, carved relief with allegory of the constitution, 1791  119 45. Jean Démontreuil, still life of dead bird, ca. 1795 120 46. Johann Caspar Lavater, detail of dedication from Règles physiognomiques, 1795  124 47. Johann Caspar Lavater, detail of page from Règles physiognomiques, 1795  125 48. Johann Caspar Lavater, detail of auf ​Ludwigs, des Ermordeten, Sarg—von Aubert Parent (on reverse of plate 16)  127 49. Aubert-​Henri-​Joseph Parent, Esquisse pour un projet de monument d’après l’idée de monsieur le ministre Lavater, 1793 [1795?]  129 50. Aubert-​Henri-​Joseph Parent, carving of ​Louis XVI, ca. 1795, detail  132 51. Anonymous, revolutionary faience plate, end of the eighteenth century  138

52. Sèvres Manufactory, cup and saucer, 1794  141 53. Anonymous, Travaux du Champ de Mars pour la Confédération du 14 juillet 1790 par les citoyens de Paris, 1790  144 54. Anonymous, Le roi, piochant au Champ de Mars, 1790 145 55. Anonymous, faience plate with execution of ​Louis Capet, ca. 1793  145 56. Georges Cuvier, figure of the jaw of an Indian elephant and the fossil jaw of a mammoth, 1799  149 57. Duc d’Angoulême Manufactory, dinner plate, 1780–88 153 58. George Stubbs, Sleeping Leopard, 1777  155 59. Dihl et Guérhard Manufactory, vase with landscape, ca. 1797–98, detail  157 60. Jean-​Baptiste Coste, figures resting in a wooded landscape, 1794  157 61. Jean-​Baptiste Coste, Jacques Marchand, Saule Pleureur, n.d.  158 62. Sèvres Manufactory, cup and saucer, 1804–5  162 63. Sèvres Manufactory, plate with cameo portrait of ​ Moschion, 1811–18  163 64. Pierre Giraud, plan of proposed funerary monument, 1801  165 65. Georges Cuvier and Alexandre Brongniart, Corps organisés fossiles des couches marines des environs de Paris, 1811  168

Illustrations

xi

Countless individuals made this book possible. Early ideas began during a 2014–15 postdoctoral fellowship at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where I have been fortunate to work in the Department of ​European Sculpture and Decorative Arts alongside exceptional colleagues, past and present. My special thanks to Ellenor Alcorn, Denise Allen, Sarah Bochicchio, Max Bryant, Elizabeth Cleland, Joseph Coscia, Jeffrey Fraiman, Nonnie Freylinghuysen, Sarah Graff, Marva Harvey, Roberta Haynes, Kristen Hudson, Ronda Kasl, Daniëlle Kisluk-​Grosheide, Wolfram Koeppe, Sarah Lawrence, Alicia McGeachy, Tommaso Mozzati, Jeffrey Munger, Jessica Ranne, Jessica Regan, Fredy Rivera, Allison Rudnick, Adrienne

Acknowledgments

Spinozzi, Elizabeth St. George, Juan Stacey, Karen Stamm, Denny Stone, Luke Syson, Wendy Walker, Melinda Watt, Sam Winks, Elizabeth Zanis, and Julie Zeftel. I presented parts of this book at conferences, lectures, and symposia beginning in 2014. The conference organized by Melissa Lo and Hector Reyes at the University of Southern California helped to jumpstart many of the ideas in this book, along with early advice from Charissa Bremer-​David and Anne Dion-​Tenenbaum. Events organized by Jörg Ebeling, Natacha Coquery, Anne Perrin-​Khelissa, and Philippe Sénéchal in Paris, Richard Taws in Norwich, Katie Scott and Lesley Miller in London, and Christine Gervais in Houston helped to solidify the book’s direction, while Elizabeth Amann’s conference in Ghent provided the occasion to share thoughts on royalism with Allison Goudie, Katie Hornstein, Susan Siegfried, Rebecca Spang, and Tom Stammers. Julia Douthwaite and Cheryl Snay at Notre Dame University and Susan once again at the University of ​Michigan invited me to test parts of the book, while my students at Cooper Union proved to be

xiv

brilliant and challenging interlocutors on ephem-

treasures of ​Drawing Matter at Shatwell Farms.

erality, violence, and the art of meat sculptures.

In Aranjuez, Javier Jordán de Urriés y de la Colina

Parts of chapter 5 appeared in volume 51 (2016)

and Pilar Benito García were my erudite hosts

of the Metropolitan Museum Journal, where I have

at the Casa del Labrador. Matthew Shaw helped

been fortunate to work with Liz Block and Niv

decipher the sundial in the nick of ​(revolution-

Allon.

ary) time, while Joseph Guerdy Lissade provided



indispensable advice on the kingdom of ​Haiti at

Funding for this book was generously pro-

vided by the French Porcelain Society, the Dean F.

just the right moment. I am grateful to the two

Failey Fund from the Decorative Arts Trust, and

anonymous readers of the book manuscript for

the Cooper Union Adjunct Faculty Professional

their astute advice; Nancy Evans of ​Wilsted and

Development Fund. I am grateful to the officers

Taylor Publishing Services for her scrupulous

and council of the French Porcelain Society, the

copyediting; and the designers at Penn State

grant committee of the Decorative Arts Trust,

University Press. Ellie Goodman amazes me with

and Anne Griffin at Cooper Union. Collectors,

her sparkling editorial precision. Her persistent

dealers, curators, conservators, librarians, and

support made it possible to leap over many unex-

archivists granted access to works of art and

pected hurdles.

documents with open arms and consummate



expertise. Leon and David Dalva in New York

me to a warm community of scholars, dealers,

and Jeffrey Loman in Washington, DC, opened

specialists, and collectors. I owe special thanks

new avenues of research on Aubert Parent. The

to Diana Davis, the late Kate Davson, Aileen

staff of ​Waddesdon Manor, the British Museum,

Dawson, Mathieu Deldique, Oliver Fairclough,

and the Victoria and Albert Museum helped

Patricia Ferguson, Cyrille Froissart, Audrey

me explore prints, furniture, and textiles. I also

Gay-​Mazuel, Sophie von der Goltz, Sebastian

thank the staff at the Archives départementales

Kuhn, Daniela Kumpf, Camille Leprince, Errol,

de l’Oise; Archives départementales de Val-​de-​

Henry, and Henriette Manners, Nette Megens,

Marne; Archives nationales; Archives de Paris;

Caroline McCaffrey-​Howarth, Tamara Préaud,

Bibliothèque nationale de France; Bibliothèque de

Pamela and Nick Roditi, Rosalind Savill, Philippe

l’Institut national de l’histoire de l’art; Cabinet des

Sacerdote, Adrian Sassoon, Gilles Waterfield,

arts graphiques, Musée du Louvre; and the Musée

John Whitehead, and Samuel Wittwe, who shared

des arts décoratifs, Paris. Hélène Lorblanchet at the

their passionate knowledge of ​“handling pots”

Musée Atget and Florence Hudowicz at the Musée

with good humor and steady hands. Anne Dion-​

Fabre in Montpellier, Maximilien Durand at the

Tenenbaum, Jean-​Philippe Garric, and Valérie

Musée des tissus et des arts décoratifs in Lyon,

Nègre, old friends and colleagues in Paris from the

and Pierre Emmanuel Guilleray and Marie-​Claire

“Percier and Fontaine” days, along with my Seoul

Waille at the Bibliothèque municipale de Besançon

crew, Chungwoo Lee, MeeNa Park, SaSa, Jung

facilitated research. Niall Hobhouse generously

Jaeho, and Charles Kim, cheered me on during

welcomed my mother, son, and me to peruse the

much-​needed breaks from both luxury and terror.

Acknowledgments

The French Porcelain Society introduced

Georgia Henkel, Brenna and Nate Hernandez,

Kim, Victoria Restler, and Rascal Stern, noth-

Eleanor Hyun, Cindy Kang, Joan Kee, Melissa Lo,

ing but love and respect. Maryann Demetrius,

Kit Maxwell, Margaret Michniewicz, Kelly Presutti,

Arumbakam Purush, and my growing family of ​

Vérane Tasseau, and Richard Taws are a rare and

Ballas, McGraths, Mins, Moons, Purushothams,

fragrant potpourri of empathy, curiosity, humor,

Rozowskis, and “stone-​cold” Hwang Young-​Ja have

and intellectual firepower. Though the pandemic

been a collective source of strength and hilarity.

brought many challenges, it also provided the

I have so much love, admiration, and gratitude

chance to meet new and cherished colleagues,

for my parents, Jai-​ok Kim and Chung-​in Moon,

particularly Adrienne Childs, Allan Isaac, Alicia

who showed me how to be fearless in the pursuit

McGeachy, Sequoia Miller, Linda Roth, Vanessa

of the unknown and how to be myself. To Ravi

Sigalas, Liz St. George, Karine Tsoumis, Chi-​

Purushotham and my ravishing terrors (I use

ming Yang, and Yao-​Fen You. Without the care of ​

that word in the best eighteenth-​century sense)

Taylor Blackman, Patti Gross, Amanda Pacheco,

Immanuel, Felix, Egon, and Desmond—you are

and Malika Rathbun, it would have been impos-

worth more than the rarest of ​luxuries. I owe you

sible to find the time, space, and energy to write.

everything save for the mistakes in this book,

To Caitlin Bowler, Sophie de la Barra, Susan

which are entirely my own.

Acknowledgments

xv

L

uxury After the Terror explores the production, circulation, and survival of French luxury after the death of

Louis XVI by focusing on makers of decorative art objects with strong ties to the monarchy and how they navigated the Terror and the world that it remade. When Louis XVI was guillotined on January 21, 1793, the king’s death was to mark the physical end of the monarchy in France and sever the vast networks of luxury that had provided

Introduction

splendor and sophistication to the royal court and constituted the source of its cultural legitimacy (fig. 1). Yet the remnants of the royal collection that were sold, circulated, and absorbed by the French state’s new institutions signaled neither a complete rupture with the past nor the total transfer of cultural authority to the body politic.1 Even as the king’s royal possessions—from drapery and tableware to clocks and porcelain services—were dispersed and destroyed, many of the individuals responsible for creating these forms of material finery found ways to survive regime change and forge new meanings for their works in the turbulent and rapidly shifting circumstances of revolutionary France and its aftermath. Covering the final two decades of the ancien régime to the beginning of the Napoleonic Empire, this book traces the ways in which the politics of dispersal, disinheritance, and dispossession conditioned new meanings for luxury. The five chapters function as case studies that investigate the work of specialists in gold, silk, wood, and porcelain. As elite patrons departed and markets dissolved, once-​prized rarities became polemical objects of a contested past. While the French Revolution channeled a politics of regeneration into ephemeral materials—circulating patriotic ideals through paper pamphlets and prints, and building temporary festivals out of plaster and

Fig. 1 Villeneuve (publisher), Matière à reflection pour les jongleurs couronnées: qu’un sang impur abreuve nos sillons: lundi 21 janvier 1793 à 10 heures un quart du matin sur la place de la Revolution, ci devant appelé Louis XVI le tiran est tombé sous le glaive des loix, 1793. Engraving and etching, 21.5 × 17 cm. G 22985, Musée Carnavalet, Paris. Photo: Paris Musées.

wood—materials that had once been associated



with courtly splendor acquired complex layers of

disinheritance affected both people and objects

association with a repudiated and fetishized past.

to an unprecedented degree during the French

Loss, exile, and dispossession provided alternative

Revolution, yet how they did so has not figured

frameworks of meaning for objects that had once

prominently in recent art-historical narratives.

functioned as symbols of prestige bound to the

Driven by the vision of the French Revolution as

taste and identity of powerful patrons. During this

the foundational moment in political modernity,

period of intense political conflict and uncertainty,

art histories of the period, from Philippe Bordes

artisans, designers, and manufacturers embarked

and Régis Michel’s groundbreaking publication

upon unanticipated futures, forging new careers

Aux armes et aux arts! Les arts de la Révolution,

untethered from the prestige of the monarchy.

1789–1799 to the works of anglophone scholars

2

2

Luxury After the terror

The conditions of dispersal, dispossession, and

such as T. J. Clark, Thomas Crow, Ewa Lajer-​

played by portraiture and prints, genres formerly

Burcharth, and Darcy Grimaldo Grigsby, have

treated as ancillary to history painting, in rene-

primarily been structured around the strong artis-

gotiating political identities.7 Taws’s work on the

tic personalities of the period, chief among them

ephemeral has been instrumental in opening

the academic painter Jacques-​Louis David. From

the way for thinking about images not as static and

his commanding position at the summit of radical

fixed forms disciplined by a “high art” discourse

politics, David, the “pageant master of the French

of salon criticism or swaggering patriarchal studio

Republic,” directed public festivals, designed

politics but as radically mobile and always in flux,

costumes for statesmen, and ran an influential

their meanings made (and unmade) by a wide

studio, all the while serving as a vocal member

variety of individuals outside the academy.

of the Committee of Public Instruction and the



Committee of Public Safety, voting alongside

arts of the French Revolution, the narratives pur-

the Jacobins Maximilien Robespierre and Louis

sued in this book do not settle neatly within the

Antoine de Saint-​Just as a regicide, in favor of the

aesthetic paradigms set forth by the academy or the

3

While building upon prior scholarship on the

king’s death. Ideologically speaking, studies that

trenchant factional politics and ideological divides

position David and his studio as the source of an

of the period. I should state at the outset that the

avant-​garde artistic genealogy align neatly with

goal of this book is not to offer a synthesized nar-

the institutional and discursive histories that have

rative of revolutionary luxury but a glimpse of the

focused on the founding of the Louvre Museum as

fractured forms of subjectivity and errant paths

a culminating moment in the formation of a ratio-

of individual experience that took shape after the

nal, liberated public sphere. Challenges to David’s

end of royal sovereignty and against the calls for

position as the founding father of modern art have

an art that would represent the collective will of

been accompanied by the “material turn” in the

the nation. Luxury and the decorative arts do not

discipline. Scholars have moved the field beyond

appear as obvious choices of subject for exploring

the academic and institutional milieu of paint-

a turbulent political culture, when unchecked vio-

ing to consider a wider field of production, from

lence became “the order of the day” and an institu-

Richard Wrigley’s sartorial studies in The Politics

tionalized part of revolutionary governance. After

of Appearances to Susan Siegfried’s consideration

all, no less a person than David himself targeted

of postrevolutionary female subjects through

luxury as anathema to the lofty didactic aims of the

the matrix of fashion; Siegfried in particular has

newly established Louvre Museum, which opened

drawn attention to the symbolic investment in

to the public on August 10, 1793, the first anniver-

4

5

costume and the parallel evacuation of the body as

sary of the fall of the monarchy and in the midst

a site of power after the Thermidorian Reaction.

of the Terror. The artist declared, “The Museum is

Beyond corporeal metaphors, architecture and

not supposed to be a vain assemblage of frivolous

ruins have come into focus in Nina Dubin’s work

luxury objects that serve only to satisfy idle curios-

on Hubert Robert, while Amy Freund, Anthony

ity. What it must be is an imposing school.”8

Halliday, Richard Taws, Rolf Reichardt, and



Hubertus Kohle have shed light on the active role

in the modern political culture that emerged at

6

Pace David, luxury undoubtedly had a place

Introduction

3

the end of the eighteenth century. The question

the museum? How did those who made luxury

of markets has primarily driven scholarship on

survive the Terror? In fact, the Revolution played

the dispersal of collections during the revolution-

an instrumental role in bringing objects like the

ary era.9 By contrast, the idea for this book began

former queen’s chair into the hallowed grounds of

in the dimly lit French decorative arts galleries

the museum; the American diplomat Gouverneur

located on the ground floor of The Metropolitan

Morris probably purchased the chair at the revolu-

Museum of Art (a universal collection modeled

tionary auctions held at Versailles after the king’s

on the Louvre), while I puzzled over how the very

death.11 Alongside ownership and provenance,

things that David had condemned as “frivolous

dispersal has shaped museum collections in untold

luxury objects” managed to survive his aesthetic

and obscured ways. Telling these stories allows one

purges and eventually arrive in New York. Walking

to begin the difficult task of acknowledging that

through the eighteenth-​century period rooms,

museums are not neutral spaces but sites actively

one can encounter ancien régime royal splendor

shaped by the agonistic politics of the past and

in the form of a chair designed by the architect

present. The ideology of cultural belonging, which

Jacques Gondoin and constructed by François-​

we consider so fundamental to the mission of uni-

Toussaint Foliot for Marie-​Antoinette at Versailles,

versal museums today, emerged out of a dialectic

located today in the Cabris Room (plate 1). Both

relationship with the dislocations and dispersals

the architect and the chairmaker outlasted the

that took place during the Terror, which forcibly

monarchy and the execution of the queen on

sought to turn private possessions into shared

October 16, 1793. The story of their survival and

forms of national wealth. In this context, luxury

the turbulent circumstances of the queen’s death,

accrued different significations.

however, are nowhere to be found amid the elegant



setting in which the chair is now placed, composed

in the hushed eighteenth-​century period rooms

of historical assemblages from different collec-

of museums in an entirely different scenario, in a

tions, sutured together to nostalgically evoke a lost

counter-​image that is captivating for the many

world. What place does the violence of dispersal

ways in which it so forcefully visualizes luxury

have in the mythic narratives of the ancien régime

not as a thing of taste or value but as a repudiated

on display in this period room? While processing

“object of contempt,” against which forms of politi-

gifts that had been bequeathed to the museum by

cal violence were meted out.12 An illustration from

recently deceased donors, I also began to contem-

Camille Desmoulins’s radical journal Révolutions

plate how death can be the starting point for new

de France et de Brabant deliberately overturns the

trajectories. Dispersal, I realized, had shaped the

elements of the ancien régime interior, so beloved

historical trajectories of so many of the museum’s

by historians of eighteenth-​century French decora-

objects, in equally important ways as commis-

tive arts and enshrined in period rooms as the site

sions and collections. Where did such things, with

of complex games of distinction, manners, and

their uneasy associations with the privileged world

seduction (fig. 2).13 In lieu of a wainscoted space

of the monarchy and the aristocracy, go dur-

organized on the basis of sets, symmetry, and

ing the Revolution, and how did they end up in

matching fabrics, the picture shows the French

10

4

Luxury After the terror

Picture, for example, the objects contained

Fig. 2 Anonymous, Moyen expeditif du peuple français pour démeubler un aristocrate: 13 novembre 1790, 1790. Engraving and etching, 17.5 × 12.5 cm. G 28272, Musée Carnavalet, Paris. Photo: Paris Musées.

people in the process of defurnishing (the démeu-

lampoons the elaborate seating games that took

bler in the print’s title) the home of an aristocrat,

place at court as members of the nobility jockeyed

in this case, the hôtel de Castries. Wrenched

for positions of royal favor (only those closest to

out of their carefully orchestrated architectural

the king and queen could be seated on proper

envelopes, the mismatched fragments of furnish-

chairs; lesser individuals were relegated to stools;

ings and decorative objects clutter the courtyard:

still others were forced to stand). The exaggerat-

one can detect among the scattered remnants a

edly jagged edges of splintered wood and shattered

veneered cabinet with floral marquetry, an oval

glass emphasize the brokenness of each symbol of

portrait of a family member intended to signal the

taste. At first glance, this image may be taken as

owner’s noble lineage, and an upholstered fauteuil

evidence of the horrific vandalism and desecra-

à la reine, a material “unseating” that perhaps

tion of private residences and public monuments

14

Introduction

5

wrought by revolutionary zealots that resulted

system of power established by his influential

in the loss of countless irrecuperable works of

minister Jean-​Baptiste Colbert, the state control

art. But look again at the protagonists. Pause

of manufacturing at the Gobelins tapestry works,

in particular at the woman in the ground-​floor

the Saint-​Gobain royal glass works, and the

window on the far right, as she carefully regards

Savonnerie carpet manufactory rendered luxury

and gingerly fingers the heavy drapes, perhaps

as a strategic and unquestioned means for con-

made from an expensive and colorful brocaded

solidating the political, economic, and cultural

silk from Lyon that she has never before seen in

authority of the French crown.16 By the time that

her life except now, when she’s meant to yank them

Louis XV added the Sèvres porcelain manufactory

out the window. Her wistful countenance, filled

to his royal portfolio in 1759, luxury had become

with a mixture of appreciative wonder and a touch

less a symbol of royal magnificence and more a

of wrathful envy, suggests a moment of aesthetic

general and diffuse signifier of distinction wielded

contemplation at odds with the mindless acts of

by courtiers, aristocrats, and, perhaps most

destruction so often ascribed to spontaneous and

prominently, financial speculators and investors

typically popular forms of violence. She offers a

who eventually outspent the crown in conspicu-

window into the complex dynamics of desire and

ous forms of consumption. Social identities were

rejection at play in the dialectical relationship

thus shaped by the production, consumption, and

between the preservation and politicized disper-

connoisseurship of luxury in Paris among the elite

sal of luxury objects, and the mediated loss felt

of the ancien régime.17 As John Shovlin has argued,

by someone who did not possess the fine things

the growing awareness of a fiscal crisis during

within her grasp. Seeing her, I think about how our

Louis XVI’s reign placed the crown’s expenditures

possessions come to define us, and what parts of

on luxury production and consumption in the

ourselves we lose when things are taken away.

direct line of fire of fierce public debates about



the nation’s political economy. While British theo-

A concise definition of luxury always seems

elusive, even as the topic has gained the interest

rists such as Adam Smith saw luxury’s merits for

of economic and social historians as well as art

Britain’s national wealth, French pamphleteers and

historians in recent years. Rather than seeking

philosophers increasingly railed against it.18 Critics

to define such a capacious term, I use “luxury” to

pitted the corrupt and sterile luxury enjoyed by

refer to a category of theoretical discourse tied

speculators and wealthy financiers who funded the

to late Enlightenment culture and as a term that

debt-​ridden crown against an agrarian virtue born

characterizes a material field of production outside

from the land itself.19

of the academy, which encompassed the decora-



tive arts. Though the temporal focus of this book

sociability, mondanité, and the rituals of social

resides in the last decade of the eighteenth century

climbing prior to 1789, luxury as an abstract cat-

and the years around 1800, the cultural position of

egory has principally been studied through eco-

luxury in the ancien régime constitutes a crucial

nomic vectors, its rampant consumption and pro-

touchstone for understanding the significance of

duction perceived in direct correlation to a nation’s

its survival. Under Louis XIV and the absolutist

wealth. When it is considered in the context of the

15

6

Luxury After the terror

Along with its strong associations with elite

Revolution, luxury is associated with economic

concise description, what effect the Terror as

liberalism’s process of depoliticization, an image

a “state policy during the period 1793–94 that

perpetuated, for example, in the Musée Carnavalet

used institutionalized violence and the threat of

exhibition of Directory period society, Au temps

violence—both to punish and intimidate the pur-

des merveilleuses (2005). Such frameworks do not

ported enemies of the nation”—had on luxury.23

account for the ways in which the weaponization

Prior to the Terror, passage of such laws as the

of luxury in the debates of the period transformed

d’Allarde law of 1791, which abolished corporations

the perception of objects, such as porcelain or

and guilds, and the emergence of new intellectual

furniture, into palpable threats that had the

property rights, which protected those work-

potential to corrupt the purity of civic virtue and

ing in the industrial arts as well as the fine arts,

patriotic taste. This is evident in the attacks on

had transformed the conditions of production

the first iteration of the Louvre. In the arrange-

in which furniture makers, designers, and por-

ment of art haphazardly organized by style rather

celain manufacturers worked. For example, they

than by school, the displays resembled, according

allowed a variety of artisans who had trained in

to one critic, “the luxurious apartments of satraps

one material to forge careers in areas of specializa-

and the great, the voluptuous boudoirs of courte-

tion that previously would have been policed by

sans, the cabinets of self-​styled amateurs.” Luxury

the apprenticeship system of guilds. The political

was evidently so threatening to the vulnerable

ideals of the period promoted the arts in numerous

citizens of the French nation that the museum

ways, from the public competitions for architec-

committee decided to banish the scant examples

tural monuments and paintings in the year II to

of Sèvres porcelain initially at the Louvre, even

smaller commissions for commemorative busts

though some revolutionaries, such as the cunning

of revolutionary heroes such as Mirabeau, whose

dealer Jean-​Baptiste-​Pierre Le Brun, at one point

portrait was executed by the deaf-​mute Claude-​

placed in charge of selecting confiscated works for

André Deseine for display in the Jacobin Club

the museum, recognized exceptional examples of

(which ordered that the bust be destroyed after

Sèvres and sought to keep them on behalf of the

Mirabeau’s ties to the crown were revealed in

nation.

1792).24 Nonetheless, the end of major state com-

20

21



22

Part of what makes the image of the hôtel de

missions from the monarchy decimated centers of

Castries being “defurnished” so unsettling is the

luxury production and contributed to widespread

tendency to see luxury objects as firmly belonging

political and economic unrest. The silk industry

to the world of pleasure and seduction that existed

in Lyon, which had catered to the French court,

prior to 1789, not a part of the radical praxis of

collapsed after the 1793 Federalist uprisings devas-

violence that appeared afterward. The politicized

tated the city.

dispersal and recirculation of luxury acquired new



meanings during the Terror. And while historians

France in the summer of 1793, the revolution-

have sought to pinpoint the origins and sources

ary auctions at Versailles had a profound effect

of the Terror, as well as its aftereffects and agents,

on luxury by mobilizing dispersal as part of a

few have considered, to borrow Timothy Tackett’s

bureaucratic system of state violence intended to

Commencing as the Federalist revolts shook

Introduction

7

deprive the former monarchy, clergy, and aris-

comical character flaw in an erstwhile monstrous

tocracy—and subsequently anyone declared an

historical figure. Robespierre’s quirks also reveal

enemy of the state—of material possessions or

the ways in which luxury became less about elite

property. Because the authority of the new French

class formation or signifiers of Enlightenment

Republic depended on the liquidation of luxury

connoisseurship, and more about idiosyncratic,

rather than on its production, the definition of

radically subjective, and even irrational systems

what it constituted became subject to personal

of value that were in continual flux throughout

inclinations and private habits and eccentrici-

the revolutionary period.28 For example, Natacha

ties. For example, even with the implementation

Coquery points to one of the most surprising fac-

of the General Maximum Law on September 29,

ets of life during the Terror: the robust activity of

1793, which placed price regulations on all neces-

buying and selling during a period of intense polit-

sary foods and commodities, “the Incorruptible”

ical unrest and economic uncertainty: “Supported

Robespierre managed to sneak coffee and sugar

by the circulation of second-​hand objects, the

onto the list of essentials, arguing, as Ruth Scurr

luxury market boasted an almost insolent vitality,

notes, that “these two products of colonialism

as proven by the press of the time.”29 In her analysis

were nevertheless addictive and the people would

of the Affiches, annonces et avis divers, ou Journal

be deprived without them.” In spite of a public

général de France, a widely circulated eighteenth-​

image that preached austerity and moral virtues,

century periodical that devoted a large section to

Robespierre was a notoriously fastidious dresser

announcements and advertisements for the sale of

who wore formal coats and breeches throughout

goods, Coquery discovered that the height of the

the Revolution, as suggested by his purported

political crisis in 1793 and 1794 saw rampant sales

portrait by Louis-​Léopold Boilly (plate 2). The

of goods, such as furniture, decoration, jewelry,

25

26

Incorruptible had a particular weakness for silk

silver services, porcelain, paintings, and particu-

stockings, which proved extraordinarily difficult

larly textiles, which took place on the secondary

to provision in the material scarcity caused by

market. Through auctions and the resale of goods,

the widespread political unrest and fiscal panic

“the French Revolution, a new regime that embod-

of the period. Hoping to secure a few clean pairs

ied modernity and the abolition of an inegalitarian

from Lyon, then in the midst of a Federalist revolt

ideology and order, far from completing this evo-

when the General Maximum Law was declared,

lution, appears to have helped strengthen tradi-

his close associate heralded the bad news that the

tional values and luxury.”30 The secondary market

Lyon postmaster general could not secure “hosiery

forms a rich and complex topic for understanding

for the Incorruptible and was sending some ham

fundamental changes in revolutionary history.

and sausage instead.”

But I want to slightly twist Coquery’s interpre-



tation of the auctions. Rather than helping to

27

8

Frivolity during the Terror, exemplified by

Robespierre’s hankering after silk stockings—hilar-

“strengthen traditional values and luxury,” I see the

iously swapped for sausages—or his declaration

auctions functioning as sites that allowed individu-

that coffee and sugar were necessities due to their

als to negotiate the material remnants of the recent

addictive properties, at first appears like a rare

past in deeply personal ways, which cut across

Luxury After the terror

the collective forms of aesthetic ideology being

dispossession played a part in undoing those

established at the national museum. Such personal

systems of knowledge upon which their social

reconfigurations of the term were part and parcel

identities had been constructed.34

of France’s revolutionary inheritance, and would



come full circle in the 1871 Paris Commune, which

La France à l’encan, 1789–1799: Exode des objets

sought to overturn the elite stranglehold over

d’art sous la Révolution. A remarkable piece of

luxury by declaring it communal. The question

scholarship written by an auctioneer with inti-

of what endowed a particular object with value

mate knowledge of the trade, La France à l’encan

was intimately tied to the question of how one

drew attention to the importance of the disper-

chose to view the past. Moreover, the buying and

sal of the royal collections within the political

selling of luxury objects presented a different yet

events of the period. Remi Gaillard has recently

no less related set of problems tied to the work-

advanced Beurdeley’s study by arguing that, far

ing through of revolutionary trauma. If, as Taws

from representing an embarrassing tragedy in

has argued elsewhere, trompe l’oeil images of

the loss of national patrimony, the revolutionary

paper money rematerialized memories of financial

sales actually demonstrated the workings of the

ruin, exquisite furnishings became reminders of a

government’s bureaucratic order and efficiency.35

prior ancien régime past that could never be fully

In other ways, the book’s narrative trajectories

recuperated.

overlap with the work of Tom Stammers, who has

31



32

The four protagonists of this book, though

This book is indebted to Michel Beurdeley’s

uncovered the role of nineteenth-​century nostal-

joined by their ties to the French luxury industry,

gic amateurs and idiosyncratic collectionneurs in

present different aspects of what remained of the

constructing the history of the Revolution. The

complicated realm of production that unraveled

dispersal of the royal collections was seen as a

as the ancien régime world of the wealthy, the

“black legend,” equally traumatic as the penury

privileged, and the elite came undone and was

caused by the disastrous inflation of the assig-

remade by the politically volatile circumstances

nats and the vandalism meted out against price-

of the French Revolution. The decision to focus on

less monuments. Still, as Stammers points out,

the makers of luxury rather than its consumers

the sales made historical artifacts accessible to the

or patrons is deliberate. I do so in order to shed

same private collectors who deplored the prac-

light on how each protagonist’s lived experience of

tices of their revolutionary forebears.36 Similar

rapidly changing historical circumstances shaped

to the eccentric historical figures who populate

the interpretation of the works they made, manu-

his study—such as Pierre-​Marie Gault de Saint-​

factured, designed, and sold, at a time when the

Germain, “an anachronism caught between two

politicized redistribution of property and movable

worlds”—the individuals at the center of this book

goods dethroned the authority of taste that had

defy easy political categorization, nor do their life

once been granted to the patron rather than the

dates neatly coincide with regime change.37 Rather

makers of luxury.33 If collecting constituted a

than classifying the objects they made on the basis

primary means through which commerce shaped

of style or within the history of collecting or taste,

Enlightenment epistemologies, dispersal and

I view them as active agents that accrued a variety

Introduction

9

10

of shifting meanings, at times contradictory to the

Ancien Régime . . . left France in the entourage of

political positions their makers had claimed for

the Bourbons. Whichever artists left for foreign

themselves.

countries after 1789 remained autonomous. None



of them remained in the continuous services of the

What determined the value of luxury items

after the death of the king, whose privileges had

exiled French court.”38

provided their symbolic source of value? Politically



and economically speaking, regicide and the dis-

tionary history that begin with the meeting of the

persal of the royal collections created considerable

Estates General in 1789, the book opens with a

challenges for the specialist producers who had

chapter on the dispersal of the royal collections

made a living working for the court and for those

after the regicide of Louis XVI on January 21, 1793.

who had established their professional reputations

Each ensuing chapter explores the work and expe-

on the basis of their ties to the monarchy. The

rience of a single individual, rather than a syn-

sudden disappearance of strong state support did

thesizing account of luxury from the Revolution

not automatically mean the adoption of a reaction-

to the first years of the Empire, which has been

ary position in favor of the Bourbon monarchy in

investigated elsewhere.39 Dispersal and the political

exile. They instead turned to alternative mar-

meanings of liquidation are explored in the first

kets. Some makers left Paris in search of patrons

chapter, which focuses on the 1793–94 auction that

elsewhere, while others adopted the patriotic

took place at the Palace of Versailles. Organized by

language of the Revolution and duly recalibrated

the government in order to finance its increasingly

the nature of their work. A variety of artistic

expensive military campaigns, the liquidation of

experiences that might be called “nonaligned” with

the royal residence’s furnishings and mobile pieces

predominant political positions emerged out of the

of décor played a critical role in the formation of a

period, along with identities that proved resistant

royalist visual and material economy, transforming

to ideological factions. Gerrit Walczak has recently

the novelties of a past age into fetishized relics and

drawn attention to the artists who departed

historical souvenirs. The trial and beheading of

France and migrated to Florence, Rome, London,

the king are tied to the ways in which the gov-

Hamburg, and Saint Petersburg during the period.

ernment’s decision to auction off his possessions

Market considerations constituted a key factor in

transformed the systems of patronage, collecting,

their decision to depart France in search of other

and production that had defined the luxury indus-

places of habitation, in contrast to the reactionary

try of the ancien régime.

communities in exile populated by noble and



aristocratic patrons in royalist strongholds such

eighteenth-​century Britain has recently been pro-

as Mannheim and Coblenz. Walczak carefully

ductively explored in unraveling capitalism’s role

distinguishes between those who identified them-

in the formation of “dispossessed” figures such as

selves as political émigrés with strong ideological

orphans, slaves, and prostitutes, who haunted the

ties to the exiled Bourbon monarchy and those

literature and cultural productions of the period.40

who were simply artistic “wanderers.” Importantly,

By comparison, in the French context it was not

he indicates that “none of the court artists of the

only the economically disenfranchised who were

Luxury After the terror

Eschewing the typical timelines of revolu-

The term dispossession in the context of

the subjects of dispossession but the king him-

by Katie Scott. And as the elite patrons, the court,

self, prompting a crisis of identity for his political

and the professional corporations were eliminated,

subjects. Although the full significance of the king’s

the individual makers fought for visibility in the

death on January 21, 1793, on the crowded time-

fiercely competitive marketplace of postcorpora-

line of revolutionary history marked by journées,

tion Paris. However, old relationships lingered

battles, and uprisings has been the subject of

on from the past. Amid the rapid dissolution of

heated debates, I follow Lynn Hunt’s assertion that

state sponsorship, the purported absolutism of the

“whether the king was symbolically dead in 1793,

French crown had been belied by a social order of

1789, or before, his actual death in 1793 drew atten-

the ancien régime that to a degree already func-

tion to a sacred void,” for, in spite of Louis XVI’s

tioned without the authority and presence of the

growing impotence in the face of events, “the king

French crown. Rebecca Comay has described this

had been the head of a social body held together

as the “originary vacancy” of power in her reading

by bonds of deference.” According to Hunt, prints

of Hegel’s philosophy of history as a response to

of his execution redoubled the political void after

the French Revolution: “Absolute monarchy was

his death by emphatically depicting the empty

already an ‘empty name,’ a heap of ornaments

pedestal on the Place de la Révolution, where a

clustering around an empty throne—legitimacy

statue of his grandfather Louis XV had once stood

shrinking even as the emblems and props of power

and had been forcefully removed by revolutionar-

multiplied. It is this originary vacancy that moder-

ies. Such acts of vandalism and the desecration of

nity both covers up and transmits. Revolutionary

monuments have been the foci of histories charting

purity brings into view precisely what it most

forms of violence against the memory of the French

denies: the emptiness at the heart of the sym-

monarchy. I suggest that we attend to the deliberate

bolic order.”42 The notion of the king’s portrait

and systemic confiscation and resale of the royal

as an empty signifier of a hollow monarchy even

collection after the death of Louis XVI as a palpable

appeared on the early forms of paper currency,

extension of state violence that transformed luxury

which were originally printed with Louis XVI’s

objects as royal expressions of legitimacy and

portraits in a manner similar to metallic specie.

41

power into polemical signifiers of loss.

However, his execution transformed the very sym-



bol of authority meant to provide the new paper

The severing of the symbolic relationship

between king and subjects and the break in courtly

money with credibility into a suspect form to

patronage coincided with the emergence of new

which no one wished to entrust their financial

understandings of art and authorship, predicated

transactions, as evidenced by the rapid inflation

upon changing commercial and legal concepts

that took place only a few short years after the

of intellectual property. As artistic privilege

assignats were first issued.

was replaced by rights in the course of the long



eighteenth century, commercially motivated court

ture the narrative of chapter 2, which considers

cases played an increasing role in adjudicating

the unlikely career of Henry Auguste, Louis XVI’s

aesthetic questions of value, authenticity, and

former goldsmith, during the Revolution. It traces

genius, a subject that has recently been explored

his transformation from a goldsmith assuming the

Money and its changing appearances struc-

Introduction

11

trade of his father to an experimental metallur-

of broken family ties, such as abandoned chil-

gist who participated in the public debates on the

dren, lost wives, and dead mothers, played a part

national debt and the creation of a paper currency.

in the professional identities of those who made

Though he was not directly involved in the govern-

the ambivalent forms of luxury that appeared

ment’s fiscal policies, Auguste’s activities reveal the

in the final decade of the eighteenth century and

ambiguous aesthetic values that had long condi-

the first one of the nineteenth century. Though the

tioned the making of art from precious metals.

artistic turn to paper as the medium of choice

It turns out that of all the luxury production at the

during the Revolution was undoubtedly driven

court, the work of goldsmiths had always been

by political ideology, economic uncertainty, and

the most threatened by money and the possibility

material scarcity, a maternal specter also haunts

of being melted down and used for currency.

the works on paper made by the designer Jean-​



Démosthène Dugourc, who is the subject of

Auguste’s troubles during the Revolution

bring into view the politicized collective anxieties

chapter 3. From bronze fixtures and chandeliers

over money that plagued individuals throughout

to furniture, Dugourc designed an array of objects

the French nation, alongside the myriad “family

for the competitive luxury market based in Paris,

romances” that shaped artisanal identities. Hunt’s

gaining fame for the goût étrusque, a style that

reading of the fraternal politics of the Revolution

looked toward classical antiquity, although it was

through a Freudian notion of a “family romance,”

characterized more by fantastical associations and

which entailed childhood fantasies about rewriting

sleights of hand than by the hard and disciplined

the narrative of familial relations, has rightly been

reconstruction of archaeological fragments that

challenged. However, Auguste’s case shows how

characterized a subsequent generation of design-

luxury workshops were structured by kinship and

ers’ work. Dugourc’s sudden turn to works on

a family model of politics, at the moment when

paper, particularly the invention of a set of repub-

the heavily policed guild system during the ancien

lican playing cards in 1793, marked not only a

régime unraveled. Laboring on behalf of the king,

reversal of his previous political ties to the French

Auguste had also depended on the prior work of

crown but also a striking contrast to the sumptu-

his father to help establish his own reputation and

ous materials for which he produced designs.

name, both of which he had managed to squander



by the Empire period. The most surprising twist

enigmatic figure of the book; his family life, politi-

in Auguste’s story is his death in Haiti. Driven by

cal volte-​face, and professional trajectories appear

a desire to escape his personal debts, this final

as tangled as the arabesque designs for which he

destination allows Haiti to appear on the histori-

became known. Designers are rarely granted the

cal horizon not as an island laid to waste by racial

same psychological complexity as painters such

terror and civil strife but as the site of postcolonial

as David, whose every aesthetic choice—each jab

futurity and freedom, removed from the bonds of

of the brush, every sinewy limb or swollen cheek

imperial authority.43

drawn—has been scrutinized and analyzed for its



Father figures were not the only ones who

ties to the cultural moment and collective uncon-

haunted lives during the Revolution. Other sorts

scious of the period and been read as a harbinger

44

12

In many ways, Dugourc constitutes the most

Luxury After the terror

of modernism. Dugourc’s designs evidence an

it was conceived on the heels of the Great Fear of

incredibly rich and complicated personality, one

1789, when rural peasants had vehemently attacked

less aligned to the rigid genealogies of modern-

actual dovecotes because they harbored such

ism and instead deeply enmeshed in the fac-

strong associations with seigneurial privilege.46

tional politics of city and court. In many ways,

While hiding in self-​imposed exile, Pâris heard of

Dugourc’s professional identity was shaped by his

the king’s death and began working on a design for

close proximity to his more famous brother-​in-​

an expiatory monument to Louis XVI. Far from

law, François-​Joseph Bélanger, and his slow climb

being a design commissioned by his exiled broth-

up the ladder of the royal administration, which

ers, this monument, subject to wistful memories,

he entered in 1784 as a designer at the Garde-​

wrathful fantasies, and his architectural judgment

Meuble de la Couronne, which was in charge of

alone, gradually reached strangely overblown

the crown’s numerous residences and furnishings.

proportions and ultimately remained unbuilt, even

Dugourc’s activities during the Revolution form a

during the Bourbon Restoration.

direct contrast to the court designer Pierre-​Adrien



Pâris, who had served as a head designer of the

as emblematic of the emergence of a royalist art

Menus-​Plaisirs, the powerful administration in

made by former court artists seeking to com-

charge of festivals, public celebrations, funerals,

memorate the king. However, Walczak’s work sug-

and, in May 1789, the orchestration of the meeting

gests that any sense of a coherent royalist art and

of the Estates General. Pâris categorically refused

identity was primarily a retrospective act that took

the positions offered to him by the revolution-

place during the Bourbon Restoration, as former

ary government, choosing instead to go into

court artists and their widows sought to recuper-

self-​imposed exile, first in Normandy and later in

ate financial support from the crown by shaping

his native Besançon. Fleeing the capital after the

“émigré” identities.47 It should not surprise us that

execution of the king, Pâris went into hiding in

Dugourc, too, refashioned his artistic identity

Colmoulins, near the northwest coast of France,

during the Restoration by emphasizing his links

where he drew the plan of a residence for himself

to the court in order to secure a royal pension,

Pâris’s monument to Louis XVI might be seen

in the former dovecote of an aristocrat (fig. 3).

despite the notoriety he had gained as a republi-

Shaped as a hermetically sealed, nautilus-​like shell,

can designer during the Revolution. He died in

Pâris’s rural residential project instinctively reverts

poverty.

to the complex, fussy rococo planning of ancien



45

Mourning and the politics of exile are central

régime architecture, at once a reminder of the out-

to chapter 4, which explores the work of the

rageously expensive speculative residential projects

wood-​carver Aubert-​Henri-​Joseph Parent, who

that crowded the neighborhood of the Chaussée-​

left Paris and traveled in 1792 to Switzerland,

d’Antin and a repudiation of the revolutionary

where he became an architect. Unlike Pâris, Parent

public festival’s vast open spaces and monuments.

was a relatively marginal figure at the court of

In repurposing a dovecote as a space of habitation,

Louis XVI. Nonetheless, he chose to identify

Pâris’s drawing simultaneously functions as a reac-

strongly with the monarchical regime following

tionary form of symbolic architecture, given that

the king’s death in 1793. In many ways, Parent’s

Introduction

13

Fig. 3 Pierre-​Adrien Pâris, Plan of a former dovecote transformed into a residence, by and for Pâris, at the château d’Escures (near Havre), 1793. Ink and watercolor on paper, 43 × 23 cm. Bibliothèque municipale de Besançon, Collection Pierre-​Adrien Pâris, vol. 484, no. 45. Photo: Bibliothèque municipale de Besançon.

14

carving practice constituted the hallmark of a

ceremony, how did one grieve Louis XVI? More

fragmented royalist political culture that drew

generally, how did forms of mourning take place

upon forms of early modern visuality and reli-

at a time when time itself was continually being

gion in Germany and Switzerland. Given that

rescheduled and remade through a republican

it was impossible to provide the dismembered

calendar that separated the year into a series of sci-

king with a lengthy, somber, and majestic funeral

entifically measured instants? I explore his reasons

Luxury After the terror

for doing so by focusing on his transformation of

nor a maker with deep ties to the court. However,

the king’s image into an aesthetic symbol of loss,

with the death of the king, the emigration of elite

mourning, and religious faith, one that would be

patrons, and continual worker unrest, the reputa-

legible to his Swiss and German clientele.

tion of the Sèvres porcelain manufactory shifted



from its distinguished patrons to its highly visible

Scholarship on the visual, medical, and

political aftereffects of the guillotine has attended

director. Motivated by his interests in the sci-

to what made the machine so shockingly mod-

ences, particularly chemistry, natural history, and

ern.48 I suggest instead that the guillotine and the

mineralogy, Brongniart managed to revive the

death of Louis XVI also prompted a recursion to

factory and transform it into a center of research

older forms of mourning and memory among

and learning; he conveyed the knowledge he accu-

the royalists witnessing the spectacle. Within

mulated during his long tenure in the magisterial

France, remembering the king had to be a private

Traité des arts céramiques, which encompassed

endeavor, since doing so publicly would have

the history, practice, and theory of ceramics

amounted to treason. Beyond the nation’s borders,

across multiple times and geographies.49 At the

commemorating the king took place by means

same time, through his parallel research with his

of private devotional objects that mingled early

collaborator and friend Georges Cuvier in the

modern ways of religious beholding with politi-

emerging field of geology, he inadvertently intro-

cized forms of vengeance. In contrast to the instant

duced ideas of extinction into the production of a

of death made radically visible by the guillotine’s

material no longer as rare and precious as it had

punctum temporis, invisibility and hidden forms

once been during the ancien régime. The chapter

reemerged as signs of monarchist memory rooted

also explores how the competing private firm Dihl

in a language of mourning, where the dead royal

et Guérhard contributed to the changing aesthetics

family was often featured as spectral presences

of porcelain. Images of nature as a source of regen-

haunting the peripheries of the Revolution’s all-​

eration and extinction appeared on experimental

seeing eye of transparency—or, somewhat incon-

works that both channeled the political turbulence

gruously, silhouettes of the dead king were hidden

of the city and gave birth to new visions of the his-

in fashion items such as fans.

tory of the Earth.





How the tensions between a political language

This book is an avowedly polemical, at times

of regeneration and extinction reshaped the mean-

idiosyncratic text that argues for the centrality of

ings of porcelains are explored in the final chapter,

the decorative arts in understanding the French

which turns to the unique circumstances that led

Revolution and the fractured forms of individual

the naturalist and polymath Alexandre Brongniart

subjectivity that emerged against (and sometimes

to take over the Sèvres porcelain manufactory in

alongside) narratives of collective experience.

1800. In many ways, Brongniart is distinguished

My aim in studying this group of individuals is

from the other protagonists in this book not only

not to establish a new “canon” but to both broaden

because of his interest in, and continuing ties with,

and complicate our understanding of the constel-

the revolutionary scientific community based in

lation of makers who shaped the material culture

Paris but also because he was neither a designer

of the French Revolution and thereby deepen our

Introduction

15

comprehension of the period. I draw upon a broad

cultural heritage belonging to the privileged few.

range of disciplines outside of art history, such

It would remain an undisturbed fairy tale about

as anthropology, literary theory, psychoanalysis,

things that used to belong to the wealthy, the elite,

and history—and even fiction—with the desire

and the powerful. Surely there must be other ways

to break open a decorative arts field that tends to

of telling this narrative. There must be a thread

be dominated by a closed discourse premised

that is not solely about exclusive ownership or pos-

upon exclusionary and homogeneous notions

session but about makers taking unexpected tra-

of French style, belonging, and taste. To get to

jectories and works arriving in unexpected places,

my protagonists, I felt the need to write honestly

about private objects becoming public things, once

and with a sense of urgency, against the grain of

removed from their original circumstances, and

history from my own incongruous subject posi-

being encountered by unforeseen viewers. Telling

tion.50 Otherwise, the story of French decorative

that story is crucial to Luxury After the Terror.

arts would stay the same: a tale of exclusivity and

16

Luxury After the terror

T

he rush of blood to the head and the pounding heart; the nerves twitching in anticipation of entering a bid on the right

foot: all of the thrills and terrors familiar to those who buy at auction must have reached a fever pitch among the crowd of merchants, pawnbrokers, artisans, and secondhand dealers who gathered at 10 a.m. on a Sunday morning, August 25, 1793, at the former lodgings of the Princesse

Chapter 1

Death and Dispersal The 1793–94 Revolutionary Auctions at Versailles

de Lamballe at the Palais de Versailles, to bid on sumptuous lots that had belonged to the ci-​ devant king of France. Less than six months after Louis Capet, formerly known as King Louis XVI, was guillotined at the Place de la Révolution on January 21, 1793, the government passed an official decree approving the sale of the contents of his royal residences of Rambouillet, Versailles, and Marly, sites that had been placed on the civil list and absorbed into the national domain.1 From that August to the following year on 24 Thermidor, year II (August 11, 1794), a total of 17,182 lots were put up for auction, netting the revolutionary government 299,902 livres (fig. 4).2 Among the items up for sale were women’s chemises, sleds, books, weapons, furniture, and bottles of wine from the “cave Capet,” offered in a haphazard array of lots. At the end of the year-​long sale, the furniture of the auction site itself was sold to the highest bidder (citizens Curé and Garrat were the proud winners).3 The year-​long sale at Versailles initiated a wave of government-​sponsored public sales that dispersed the seized possessions of the court, church, and émigrés throughout the revolutionary period. Bidders took advantage of the low prices of objects sold in assignats, the newly issued national paper currency, to buy low and resell high.

Taking place throughout the Terror, the

1793–94 Versailles auctions formed part of a larger

Fig. 4 Poster of the Auction of Furnishings and Precious Effects at the former Château de Versailles, September 30, 1793. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

set of governmental policies that aimed to get rid

traditionally been interpreted as a tragic loss for

of the material traces of the monarchy, deemed

France’s cultural heritage. Michel Beurdeley and

despotic and inimical to the new French Republic.

Pierre Verlet lamented the staggering losses of the

For the nostalgic collector-​historians of the nine-

royal collections in the great “exodus” of national

teenth century, the Versailles auctions, writes Tom

patrimony during the Revolution, with a number

Stammers, marked a “symbolic terminus of the

of the rarest furnishings and decorative arts objects

old regime,” a point of no return that simultane-

finding their way into museum collections in

ously reframed the relationship of collecting to

England and the United States in the course of the

“historical consciousness and the revolutionary

nineteenth century.5 Pondering the reasons behind

politics of heritage” by allowing individuals to

the government’s “brutal decision” to sell off the

literally own a piece of history. The auctions have

royal furnishings, Verlet suspected that the aim

4

18

Luxury After the terror

was to “empty and diminish the royal châteaux and

with the means to seize control of their financial

render them unsuited to the installation of a fresh

destiny by attempting to rid themselves of past

tyrant”; such foresight, the author notes, failed to

debts that were oftentimes the monetary inheri-

predict the arrival of Napoleon.6

tance of the ancien régime.





This chapter adopts a different approach to

Of course, this was not the first time that

the Versailles auctions by considering the ways in

material dispersal closely followed abrupt

which the dispersal of royal possessions staged a

regime change; the execution of Charles I, and

spectacle of loss in the wake of the king’s death.

the sale of his exceptional collection during the

Rather than speak of the loss of royal furnishings

Commonwealth, is perhaps among the best-​

and decorative arts objects from the palaces solely

known examples.8 The auction of Louis XVI’s

in terms of a tragedy for the national patrimony

collections took place within a remarkably differ-

of France, I view this unusually lengthy sale as

ent political milieu, when the Revolution sought

a pivotal turning point in the history of French

not only to depose the monarchy within France

luxury and, following on from Stammers’s insights,

but also to make its principles of equality univer-

as a generative source of collective memories and

sal. These aims, however flawed and hypocritical

historical consciousness of the Revolution in the

they may have ultimately been (particularly in

course of the nineteenth century. Liquidation pro-

the exclusion of women and enslaved Blacks from

vides a starting point for reevaluating the mean-

the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the

ings of works of art in a revolutionary context.

Citizen), endowed the activities and mission of

The protagonists found in the subsequent chapters

the governing bodies with a symbolic dimension,

of this book keenly felt the loss of the monarchy

one that extended to the auctions. Rémi Gaillard

as a source of patronage, financial support, and a

writes that the auctions, though ostensibly trans-

social matrix upon which to map out their works

actional, were “invested with a strong symbolic

and professional identities. The absence of a single

dimension—essentially consisting of the ‘material’

protagonist in this chapter forms a deliberate con-

liquidation of royalty, after which it had been polit-

trast to the rest of this book in order to indicate the

ically and physically decapitated.”9 As will become

ways in which the revolutionary auctions opened

apparent, liquidation did not necessarily mean

up the place of luxury by evacuating the “sover-

complete annihilation. Even as the dispossession

eign” position of the patron as subject in determin-

of the royal collections was part of the Terror’s

ing the aesthetic parameters of artistic commis-

policies, a redistributive justice predicated upon a

sions (in a process not entirely unrelated to Slavoj

politics of retribution, the auctions shaped the col-

Žižek’s canceled Kantian subject).7 The symbolic

lective memory of Louis XVI by displacing power

liquidation of the monarchy also transferred aes-

from the king’s body onto the objects that had

thetic authority from the court to the open market

once been royal possessions through the associa-

in Paris, where the absence of the king forced art-

tive power of provenance. Subsequently enshrined

ists to capture new audiences for their work. As we

in the nineteenth-​century imagination as a lieu de

will see in the ensuing chapters, auctions provided

mémoire, the Versailles auctions brought the public

individuals such as the goldsmith Henry Auguste

face to face with the stubborn material remainders

Death and Dispersal

19

of the monarchy that resisted being transformed

ramshackle palace had been chased out a few

into abstract principles or liquid assets and defied

hours before the family’s arrival, and they encoun-

the museum’s systems of rational classification.

tered a confused mess at the Tuileries, with the

Said otherwise, the auctions rendered decorative

apartments “topsy turvy, full of workers, with lad-

art objects and luxury into aberrant remainders

ders in every corner . . . , all of the most basic fur-

of the past that did not settle comfortably within

niture was missing, and those that were found in

revolutionary narratives.

disrepair.”11 Only a small suite of apartments on the first floor had been refurbished in 1784 for Marie-​ Antoinette’s visits to the opera in Paris. The dau-

Royal Remnants

phin and his sister occupied the rooms, while their parents used the queen’s apartments on the ground

Prior to the liquidation of the king’s possessions

floor.12 Over the next few weeks, after the journées

that took place in 1793, the symbolic evacua-

of October 5 and 6, Louis XVI settled into the new

tion of power had already commenced in 1789,

residence in Paris. The king chose his quarters on

when the royal family had been removed from

the ground floor, off the central pavilion. Close to a

the court of Versailles and forcefully brought to

small space for his office, he requested the creation

Paris. Commemorated in the popular imagination

of a forge, where he could continue tinkering on

through prints and pamphlets and subsequently

the locks and ironwork he had enjoyed making at

marked as a revolutionary journée, or significant

Versailles with his teacher, the serrurier François

day, the family’s arrival in Paris was a tumultu-

Gamain. Over the next few weeks, the Garde-​

ous affair. On October 6, 1789, an angry crowd

Meuble de la Couronne, the royal administration

led by working-​class women forced its way into

in charge of royal furnishings, sent pieces from

the Palace of Versailles, following rumors that the

unoccupied residences, including the château de

king had participated in a banquet for royal

Choisy and the newly abandoned Versailles.13 The

bodyguards and loyalist troops where the national

royal family expended 280,000 livres on refurbish-

cockade, symbol of the new egalitarian ideals of

ing the palace, in spite of the fact that the king,

the Revolution, had been trampled on. The mob

believing he would eventually return to Versailles,

only agreed to return to Paris with the royal family

hesitated to spend so much on temporary

in tow. The cortège of royal carriages, the Paris

accommodation.

National Guard, and the marquis de Lafayette



took seven hours to travel from Versailles to Paris.

glance as minor details, but it should be recalled

Upon their arrival, they encountered large crowds

that the interiors of palaces functioned as sites

before taking up residence at the dilapidated Palais

of royal representation, carefully maintained and

des Tuileries.

staged by the Garde-​Meuble de la Couronne.



Work at the royal manufactories continued on

10

20

Though the arrival of the royal family in Paris

The family’s furnishings may appear at first

symbolically merged the crown and city at the

major commissions, such as a set of tapestries

Tuileries, the palace was far from a magnificent

of The Four Continents by the Beauvais factory,

site for royal representation. The squatters in the

designed by Jean-​Jacques-​François Le Barbier.

Luxury After the terror

Initiated as a project in 1783 after the Treaty of

on expenses, the Garde-​Meuble de la Couronne,

Versailles concluded the American Revolution and

still responsible for furnishing the royal palaces,

commissioned in 1786, the tapestries were meant

ordered wallpaper from Arthur et Robert to

to instill patriotism and fulfill the wish to see more

update the dilapidated palace.17 The appearance of

topical subjects made by the royal manufacto-

wallpaper in official ceremonial rooms, such as the

ries, since the public was, according to the comte

king’s study, was unusual for the period, indicat-

de Vergennes, the foreign minister who had sup-

ing a new use for material that had until then been

ported financing the American war, “dégoûté des

reserved for informal, private spaces.18 The embel-

anciens genres.” The tapestry America from the

lishment of the king’s study and bedchamber at the

set incorporated the most distinctive iconography

Tuileries with arabesque wallpaper signaled the

(plate 3). Though America is still shown wearing

adoption of a decorative motif that had formerly

the characteristically exotic costume accorded

been reserved for feminine or informal spaces

to allegorical depictions of the continent, she is

such as the boudoir, perhaps inadvertently rein-

somewhat remarkably shown next to the figure

forcing the image of an impotent, effeminate king

of Liberty, who holds an enormous American

that circulated in the libels of the period. Even

flag, featuring a fleur-​de-​lis hidden amid the stars

in the king’s bedchamber, traditionally the most

and stripes, and is capped by a Phrygian bonnet.

important ceremonial space in royal palaces, the

France is depicted as a winged warrior, holding a

Garde-​Meuble resorted to using twelve panels of

shield decorated with fleur-​de-​lis and striking the

colored arabesque wallpaper. A vestige of ceremo-

enemy Britannia, who has fallen to the ground.15

nial magnificence was preserved through the ship-

The plethora of symbols, particularly the fleur-​de-​

ment of a set of nine Don Quixote tapestries from

lis, would have outdated the tapestry by the time

Versailles, which covered the bare walls in the

of its completion in 1791, and the set, like many

bedchamber.19 On January 4, 1790, three mahogany

other incomplete royal commissions, ended up in

commodes made by Jean-​Henri Riesener arrived

the storeroom. When the minister of the interior

from Versailles, along with two rosewood corner

of the revolutionary government sent a letter on

tables.20 Bernard Jacqué has argued that the promi-

9 Pluviôse, year IV (January 29, 1796) requesting

nent use of arabesque wallpapers at the Tuileries

the use of the Beauvais tapestries for furnish-

signaled the growing acceptance of wallpaper as

ing the seized Luxembourg Palace, he evidently

a decorative element suitably sumptuous for use

had a change of heart after noticing that not only

in royal palaces. Conversely, one could say that

was the size of the tapestries too small for the pal-

its incorporation as a substitute luxury material

ace, but also the four tapestries were “stained with

for silks and other textiles that would have taken

several signs of feudalism difficult to remove.”

longer to produce signaled an awareness of the



ephemeral nature of royal space.

14

16

The continuance of costly and lengthy royal

commissions contrasted with the increasingly



strained circumstances of the royal family’s con-

personal significance for the royal family, par-

finement at the Tuileries and their growing reli-

ticularly as popular support for a constitutional

ance on provisional forms of luxury. To cut down

monarchy waned and their public role diminished.

Instead of public ostentation, luxury acquired

Death and Dispersal

21

At the Tuileries, Marie-​Antoinette and her sister-​

of the crown. The meager last will and testament

in-​law, Madame Élisabeth, began working on a

left behind by Louis XVI on the eve of his death

needlepoint floral tapestry to pass the time, which

formed a stark contrast. It constitutes an impor-

they would continue to work on after their incar-

tant prelude to the royal auctions that took place

ceration at the Temple. The needlepoint fragments

after his death by investing royal furnishings and

were carefully preserved by Madame Dubuquoy-​

precious objects with historical significance as

Lalouette, who had originally supplied the materi-

artifacts of a bygone age.

als and subsequently wove them together into a



larger tapestry during the Restoration (plate 4).

Tuileries coincided with the growing recognition

A far cry from The Four Continents expertly woven

that Louis Capet could no longer serve as the head

by Beauvais, the needlepoint piece functioned as

of state after the family’s flight to Varennes. Attacks

a personal souvenir of royal captivity, a sentiment

against the monarch culminated with the journée

that probably also colored Louis XVI’s request for

of August 10, 1792, when an insurrection orga-

fourteen vases of Sèvres porcelain to be sent from

nized by the Paris Commune entered the Tuileries

his private chambers at Versailles on December 27,

demanding the king, resulting in the massacre

1791, to the Tuileries, six months after the royal

of the Swiss Guards who were left behind to defend

family’s failed escape and capture at Varennes.

the palace. The royal family had fled next door to

In this context, such luxury objects would have

seek protection from the National Assembly. The

been requested as forms of private delectation

September Massacres were followed by fears of a

rather than official symbols of the monarchy.

foreign attack and the radicalization of the gov-

By that point, popular support for the king had

ernment with the rise of the Jacobin faction and

dwindled to a few loyalists, whose outward dem-

the expulsion of the Feuillants, or constitutional

onstrations of fealty would have been treacherous.

monarchists. In rapid succession, Louis XVI was

In May 1792, he requested that two torchères,

imprisoned at the Temple, placed on trial, found

or standing candelabra, be sent from the Hall of

guilty, and condemned to die at the guillotine for

Mirrors at Versailles. Objects bore the burden

treason. As scholars have noted, although due

of signifying the last flickering vestiges of royal

process was essential to establishing the legitimacy

majesty and etiquette, since the architecture of

of regicide, the trial took place with remarkable

the Tuileries, cohabited by the National Assembly,

speed, a radical acceleration of time that evoked

could no longer impose it.

not only the mechanical deaths produced by the

21

The dwindling material majesty of the

guillotine but also, more broadly, the ways in which the Revolution itself sped up history. Last Will and Lost Bodies



The details of the king’s arrival at the Place

de la Révolution have been rehearsed many times,

22

For centuries, royal inventories had taken stock

as if it resembled the denouement of a play.22

of the magnificent joyaux of the kings of France,

He rode in a carriage, visible through its window.

carefully weighing, describing, and itemizing the

Soldiers lined the streets of Paris. Around 20,000

myriad treasures that materialized the majesty

people gathered at the Place de la Révolution,

Luxury After the terror

where the execution was scheduled to take place

theory of monarchy that ensured the sanctity

on a platform raised six feet from the ground.

of royal sovereignty. As Michael Walzer writes,

The executioners attempted to remove the former

“Kings may return for a time, but . . . ‘they are

king’s coat, which he chose to unfasten himself.

never more than phantoms.’ Majesty cannot be

Wearing a white shirt, breeches, and white stock-

restored. Though they called themselves godlike,

ings, he mounted the steps of the scaffold next

there was no resurrection for kings.”25

to his priest. Charles-​Henri Sanson, the execu-



tioner, cut his hair. The king had protested the

a direct contrast to the lavish funerary processions

binding of his hands with a rope but then acqui-

that had traditionally marked the death of the king

esced. He attempted to address the crowd with a

in ancien régime France. Far from representing an

speech but managed only the words “People! I die

end, the death of a monarch provided the oppor-

innocent! I pardon my enemies and hope that

tunity to signal the stability of the institution of the

my blood will be useful to the French, that it will

monarchy in the transmission of power to the next

appease God’s anger,” before being drowned out

generation. During the ancien régime, funerals

by the sound of drums. Placing him horizontally

had been lavish spectacles that occupied the entire

into the guillotine, the executioner dropped the

kingdom of France. The art of dying well demon-

blade at 10:22 a.m. Sanson’s assistant picked up his

strated a sovereign’s ultimate mastery over human

head and held it aloft for all to see. Cries of “Long

frailty and a sign of his divine ability to control his

live the Republic!” emerged from the crowd.

body with his spirit. Highly orchestrated events



transmitted to the public through stylized récit

23

The public execution of the king had the goal

The end of Louis XVI on the scaffold formed

of ending the myth of the king’s two bodies and

narratives, the deaths of kings were described in

with it both the fundamental idea behind royalism,

terms of triumph over suffering, piety and com-

that he alone embodied the sovereign authority to

munion with God, and putting one’s affairs into

rule, and the institution of divine kingship.24 When

order.26 The grand and lengthy funeral proces-

the members of the National Convention decided

sion held on the king’s behalf assured the public

to try Louis XVI like any other citizen, they were

of the smooth transition of power. Organized by

fully aware of the English precedent for regicide

the Menus-​Plaisirs, the royal administration in

with the trial and execution of Charles I in 1649.

charge of celebrations for births, marriages, deaths,

A king had never been put on trial on the grounds

and other events, royal funerals had two express

of treason in France, where the sanctity of the laws

functions: “one, religious, to accompany the

had been invested in and were dependent on the

deceased to the other world, the other, political,

sovereign inviolability of the king. The mobiliza-

to announce the transmission of power.”27 Hence,

tion of a legal process was aimed at demonstrat-

when a vast funeral cortège was held on the death

ing the French Republic’s radical transparency

of Louis XIV to place his remains in the royal

and that all, including the king, were equal under

sepulcher at Saint-​Denis, the long and meander-

the law. Perhaps more than the execution of the

ing procession signaled the health of monarchical

king, the mundane order of due process destroyed

succession and the rightful transfer of power to his

the sense of mystery at the heart of the political

great-​grandson Louis XV and the regent Philippe,

Death and Dispersal

23

duc d’Orléans. Somewhat curiously, the Bourbon

since it is unclear to whom and from what position

monarchy never established a grandiose funer-

the king writes. Lacking any pretense at hero-

ary monument at Saint-​Denis. Gérard Sabatier

ics, the pious Louis XVI wrote to God alone, since

suggests that this lack was linked to a new image

he had been “deprived of every communication

of the living monarch, where “the preoccupation

whatsoever, . . . and besides being involved in a

under the exceptionally long reign of the two

criminal prosecution, of which it is impossible,

Louis XIV and XV, went from the exaltation of the

considering the passions of men, to foresee the

dead king in a secluded place turned towards final

event; for which no existing law can furnish any

ends, to that of a living king and the demonstra-

pretext or precedent.”31 Offering his soul to God

tion of his authority over the living.”28 No funeral

and extending forgiveness to those who “with-

was held for Louis XVI after his death on

out any cause given them by me, have become

January 21, 1793 (and there would not be one until

my enemies,” he entreated his son and potential

some twenty-​two years later).

successor to show mercy to those who showed



hatred to him and advised him that “if he should

Louis XVI’s will, penned just before his

death, left little space for material possessions,

have the misfortune to become king, to remember,

let alone sumptuous furnishings. On the morn-

that he owes himself entirely to the happiness of

ing of January 21, 1793, on the way to the Place

his fellow-​citizens.”32 What little Louis XVI had

de la Révolution, Louis XVI asked that it be

in terms of material possessions, he gifted to his

given to his wife, Marie-​Antoinette, the former

personal valet, Jean-​Baptiste Cléry: “I ask the men

queen of France. He had written the document

of the Commune to send him my garb, my books,

on Christmas Day the year before, weeks before

my watch, my purse, and the other small effects

the National Convention reached a final verdict

that have been deposited at the Council of the

on the king’s trial, voting in favor of regicide on

Commune.”33 Books, watch, purse: the meager

January 20.29 Known as the last will and testament

possessions that hewed close to the mortal body of

of Louis XVI, the document was read by the Paris

Louis XVI at the Temple stood in marked con-

Commune immediately after his execution and

trast to the vast array of “precious furnishings and

was published and translated the same year. Louis

effects” for sale at Versailles that Sunday morning

XVI’s last will and testament has often escaped

in August 1793. The last will and testament could

notice, even as the document bore lasting associa-

be interpreted as the attempt to seize control over

tions with the collective memory of a king more

the narrative of his end before the spectacular

often remembered for how he died rather than

death of the author at the scaffold.

how he reigned. It was used in commemorative



works such as François-​Joseph Bosio’s sculpture

visual spectacle, drawn up by revolutionaries as the

in order to transform the dead monarch into a

necessary and exemplary sacrifice that had to be

Christian martyr, where, according to Emmanuel

made to ensure the future survival of the French

Fureix, “the representation eludes the crime and

Republic. Prior work to dehumanize the royal

all historicizing aims, in favor of an allegorization

body had been achieved by political pamphlets

of death.” Nonetheless, it is a curious document,

and satirical images that denigrated the king and

30

24

Luxury After the terror

Regicide was inevitably a highly publicized

queen, so that by the time each went on trial for their crimes against the French nation, they had already been transformed into an animal and monstrous other.34 In contrast to the corpulent and fleshy depictions of the king and queen while they were alive, royalist propaganda depicted the couple after their deaths in the form of phantom presences and specters, hidden in silhouette profiles, which closely embraced the animated figures of a dancing sansculotte, evoking the crowds who were said to have danced to “La Marseillaise” after the king’s execution, while others dipped their handkerchiefs in his blood and clambered for a piece of his cut-​up brown coat and its enamel buttons.35 A stock royalist image that emerged in 1795 featured a female figure in mourning, bereft with grief, next to a weeping willow protecting a funerary urn and tomb. The silhouetted portraits of the king and queen, as well as the other executed members of their family, could be found lurking in the voids hidden amid the landscape, the spectral presences hugging and haunting the outlines of mournful urns, tombs, and Elysian landscapes of rest, the material trappings of funerary rites that had been denied to them (fig. 5). Such royalist prints drew attention to the fact that, while the

Fig. 5 Anonymous, Saule pleureur, 1795. Engraving, 26 × 16.9 cm. Bequest of Mary Martin, 1938, 38.145.437. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Photo: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

king’s and queen’s deaths may have functioned as public spectacles at the Place de la Révolution and witnessed by large crowds (possibly including the

“put in his place,” positioned among his citizens,

French goldsmith Henry Auguste, whose work-

“buried between the bodies of those who died at

shop was nearby), their dismembered remains

the time of his marriage and the Swiss killed on

were quickly made away with and buried in the

August 10.”36

mass graves at the nearby Madeleine Cemetery to



prevent any proper commemoration. The king’s

Sophie Wahnich has argued for the collective

body, once decapitated, was put in a wicker basket

necessities of political terror and vengeance, for

before being transferred to an open wooden coffin

the philosopher Immanuel Kant, regicide marked

that was lowered into the ground and covered

a point of no return, a moral crime from which

with quicklime. The former king had finally been

the Revolution and its subjects could never be

While the contemporary radical theorist

Death and Dispersal

25

Fig. 6 Jean-​Démosthène Dugourc, drawing of the arrival of the funeral procession at the Abbey of Saint-​Denis with the remains of King Louis XVI and Queen Marie-​Antoinette on January 21, 1815. Pen and black ink, 32.3 × 45.7 cm. On loan from the Département des Arts Graphiques du Musée du Louvre, MV 5653; INV Dessins 287; RF3724. Musée national des Châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon, Versailles. Photo © RMN–Grand Palais / Art Resource, New York (Gérard Blot).

26

absolved.37 In the Metaphysics of Morals (1797),

recalling “such scenes as the fate of Charles I or

Kant writes that the people did not have a legal

Louis XVI. But how are we to explain this feeling,

right to resist the authority of the sovereign

which is not aesthetic feeling (sympathy, an effect

without throwing themselves into moral peril.

of imagination by which we put ourselves in the

Evoking the regicide of the English king Charles I

place of the sufferer) but moral feeling resulting

in the same breath as the executed French sov-

from the complete overturning of all concepts

ereign, Kant described the feeling of horror in

of rights? It is regarded as a crime that remains

Luxury After the terror

forever and can never be expiated (crimen immor-

the drawn-​out commemorations of the king and

tale, inexpiabile), and it seems to be like what

queen like scythes that cut through forms of revo-

theologians call the sin that cannot be forgiven

lutionary and Napoleonic collective memory.41 Yet

either in this world or the next.”38 For Kant, regi-

it was a style without a body, haunted by specters,

cide completely reversed the relationship between

speculations, and missing corpses. Moreover, the

an inviolable sovereign and his people: “Like a

mysterious circumstances of the dauphin’s death at

chasm that irretrievably swallows everything, the

the Temple in 1795 led to a host of imposter dau-

execution of a monarch seems to be a crime from

phins. Their continual reappearances throughout

which the people cannot be absolved, for it is as if

the nineteenth century filled the varying political

the state commits suicide.” The revolution after

regimes with dread by raising the prospect of a

regicide could not possibly provide the legitimate

legitimate heir to the Bourbon throne.42 Twenty-​

foundations for a functioning state. The illegality

three years after the death of Louis XVI, the

of regicide not only tainted the government with

Bourbon Restoration held a ceremony of return-

the guilt of killing the king but also, more impor-

ing the king’s body to the royal tombs at Saint-​

tantly, with upending the moral inviolability of

Denis, despite the fact that the bodies of the king

sovereignty.

and queen had never been found with absolute



The spectacle of the king’s death had the

certainty. Depicted by Jean-​Démosthène Dugourc,

paradoxical effect of transforming secular decora-

the former royal designer whom we will encounter

tive objects such as furnishings into royal relics,

in a subsequent chapter, the pomp of the funeral

simultaneously divesting monuments of the ability

cortège appeared to compensate for the specter of

to transmit royal authority. In one sense, the royal-

doubt that loomed regarding the whereabouts of

ist visual economy, expressed in oblique forms

the once sacred king’s body (fig. 6). The royalist

such as the silhouette image discussed above,

fiction of the king’s two bodies had come to an

represented the ways in which the royal presence

end, just as loyalists enshrined the material relics

of the king and queen, hovering in spectral form,

of the Bourbon monarchy—from the queen’s silk

had been exiled from material embodiments of

shoes to strands of the king’s hair—as historical

sovereign authority. Court artists in exile, such

talismans that could summon forth the past.

39

as the architect Pierre-​Adrien Pâris, constructed fictive funerary monuments to the dead king, which grew in scale and somberness even as

Spectacular Dismantlings

the possibilities for realizing a commemorative monument to the dead king within the internecine

Let us return to the immediate aftermath of the

politics of the Bourbon Restoration diminished.

king’s death, as the revolutionaries confronted the

The nostalgic remembrance of a sacrificed king,

concrete problem of what to do with the king’s non-

coupled with a strong dose of vengeance, laid the

bodily remains in the form of his possessions, lux-

foundations for a reactionary politics in exiled

ury objects and furnishings that filled the palaces

royalist strongholds, which returned to France

and royal buildings that had recently been seized as

during the Bourbon Restoration and brandished

biens nationaux (national property), as well as the

40

Death and Dispersal

27

storerooms of the Garde-​Meuble de la Couronne.

that took place in conceptions of property, were

On June 10, 1793, the National Convention, moti-

not new. Deriving from the Latin word for

vated by a desire to “put the sumptuous furnish-

increase, auctions had played an instrumental role

ings of the last tyrants of France, as well as the vast

in the translation of objects, goods, and, more

possessions they reserved for their pleasure, at the

nefariously, enslaved people from one owner to

service of the defense of liberty and the growth

another. In antiquity, auctions served as ruthless

of national prosperity,” issued an official decree

and public forms of political dispossession, func-

regarding the sales.43 By placing the king’s former

tioning within the economic life of ancient Rome,

possessions on the auction block, the National

where the praeco, or herald, oversaw the transac-

Convention aimed at the complete liquidation of

tion of money and goods by conducting sales,

the French throne, along with its matching foot-

taking offers, and declaring the winning bidder.46

stools, carpets, and tapestries. Selling off the king’s

While Romans across a broad spectrum of socio-

possessions on the civil list enabled the govern-

economic backgrounds bought and sold items at

ment to financially support its military campaigns,

public and private sales, emperors and politicians

following France’s declaration of war against

used auctions as platforms for displaying power.

England and Holland in February 1793. In another

Prominent individuals sold off the goods of

sense, the former royal possessions partook in a

defeated military enemies, purchased the effects of

broader transformation of private property recently

rivals or condemned citizens, or sold off their own

described by historian Rafe Blaufarb as the “great

personal goods in a display of magnanimity.47

demarcation.” Ancien régime understandings of



property depended on a feudal system where public

utilized auctions in order to disinherit rivals and

power in the form of venal offices and seigneuries

consolidate the cultural power of the French state.

was privately owned, and real estate in the form of

In 1661, Nicolas Fouquet, Louis XIV’s ambitious

land, buildings, and annuities was divided up into

finance minister, was arrested for embezzlement

a shared but hierarchical ownership “standing in

and misuse of funds. Shortly after, the jealous king

relations of domination and subordination to one

reserved a number of objects from the financier’s

another.” The monarchy rested at the top of the

possessions before they were sold off, including a

feudal hierarchy, “which asserted that its sover-

bed of green velvet embroidered in gold and silver,

eignty gave it a general right of proprietary supe-

and a set of Brussels tapestries.48 After Fouquet

riority, a kind of universal lordship, over the land

was found guilty and creditors seized his goods

44

of the entire kingdom.” By turning the crown’s

and placed them at auction in 1665, Louis XIV

possessions into biens nationaux along with selling

purchased crystal platters and cups at the sale,

them to the public, the revolutionary government

as well as Nicolas Poussin’s painting Gathering

sought to separate sovereign powers from private

Manna in the Desert.49 Auctions were not always

property, making possible the full ownership

politically motivated affairs. The head of the

of property by a single individual.

Garde-​Meuble de la Couronne under Louis XV



sold off old-​fashioned or damaged goods from the

45

Paradoxically, the political use of auctions,

persisting alongside the more sweeping changes

28

Prior to the Revolution, Louis XIV had

Luxury After the terror

royal household to make space for and fund new

furnishings—what museums today might describe

Cynthia Wall has described as the “narratives of

as a deaccessioning policy. Held in Paris at the

dismantlings” that shaped the precarious discourse

Tuileries and the Louvre, the officially approved

of the secondary market.52 In France, artists such

auctions included upholstered furniture, wood

as Gabriel de Saint-​Aubin recognized the comic

furniture, and lacquered objects. The bidders

potential of the numerous sales that took place

were for the most part pawnbrokers, mercers, and

during his lifetime, when connoisseurs admired

upholsterers, who could reuse the damaged objects

his work as a peintre brocanteur (painter dealer),

for raw materials that could be reincorporated

annotating works of art for sale in unillustrated

into new items or refashioned and remounted

auction catalogs.53 His description of the human

according to the modern tastes of the day. Buyers

comedy that paraded past him during the famous

also included a few members of the nobility. The

sales held in the Paris auction houses is fittingly

royal provenance of objects did not always guar-

found as an addendum to a catalog: “You imagine

antee high prices. A number of lots failed to sell,

that I must take a lot of interest in the price varia-

including pieces of Boulle furniture that would,

tions, the progress of the arts, in the profit or waste

during the Revolution, become valued as works

of the merchants; not at all, the sales for me are a

of art worthy of being included in the new public

comedy, where each actor naively plays his role;

museum at the Louvre.

the vanity of some, the cupidity of others, the ruse



of one, the suspicion of another, I recognize pretty

50

51

Auctions throw into question issues of owner-

ship and inheritance, severing a particular work

much all of it, and see the different motives that

of art from its prior context by augmenting or

make them move; all of this amuses me and allows

decreasing its monetary value after the death or

me to pass the time at little expense.”54

impoverishment of a previous owner. By tempo-



rarily placing the value of an object on hold, the

tions became sites that revealed the crown’s

auction might be described as a temporal rupture

entanglements with Parisian luxury and all that

that severs an object’s time of possession under

it signified. The highly publicized sale of the duc

one owner from that of another later possessor.

d’Aumont’s collection in 1782 revealed how the lux-

Such changes in ownership became forms of public

uries that had been accumulated within the hôtels

spectacle in the eighteenth century, as connois-

of plutocratic financiers and grand courtiers such

seurs, collectors, and artists sought to outbid one

as the duke had come to surpass the king him-

another. The “English style auction” was popu-

self. Such collections were the topic of both scorn

larized by James Christie, the British auctioneer

and admiration in a prerevolutionary press that

whose seductive and elegant oratories tempted

positioned luxury at the center of debates about

potential buyers into imagining new lives made

corruption, patriotism, and virtue. At the sale

possible through the purchase of rare and tasteful

of the duc d’Aumont’s collection at his residence

objects. All the while, the silver-​tongued Christie

beginning on December 12, 1782, a large crowd of

took care to draw attention away from the fact that

visitors gathered to see the lots offered during the

death or bankruptcy would ultimately lead to

nearly month-​long exhibit. Spectators included

the dispersal of purchases, forming part of what

members of the king and queen’s households,

In the final years of Louis XVI’s reign, auc-

Death and Dispersal

29

as well as dealers who purchased items on behalf of

the royal residences of Saint-​Cloud and Bellevue

the royal couple. The duc d’Aumont was renowned

in 1794 and 1795) to assess the furnishings that

for his furnishings and carved and mounted hard-

would go up for sale.58 As Gaillard emphasizes,

stone vases on columns, objects that were lavishly

those tasked with coordinating the auctions were

and precisely illustrated by the architect Pâris in

deputies from the Convention who considered

the catalog edited by the dealers Claude-​François

themselves “représentants du peuple en mission.”59

Julliot and Alexandre-​Joseph Paillet.55 Several

Divided into seven sections, the published decree

bidders could not actually afford to pay for the

for the dispersal of the royal collections included

works they had won. Buyers rarely paid for works

meticulous orders for the organization, invento-

in cash and often relied on endorsed promissory

rying, and estimation of furnishings and other

notes. The great expert and dealer Pierre Rémy,

effects found in the houses of the former royal

for example, procured promissory notes of 6,000

family and those in their retinue, as well as the sale

and 1,000 livres guaranteed by the goldsmith

of the properties transferred to the state. During

Robert-​Joseph Auguste, along with shares of the

the inventorying process, commissioners were

Compagnie des Indes worth 2,575 livres. In a far

to take stock of what could be sold, what should

cry from Louis XIV’s sequestration of Fouquet’s

be reserved for the use of the new government,

goods, the royal couple discreetly purchased fifty-​

what were considered artistic monuments, and,

six objects out of the 447 lots offered, for 220,000

finally, which items could be used by the army.

livres. These included an antique lidded vase with

Haste was imperative for a new nation burdened

mounts of a siren and a female faun by the gilder

with debt seeking to finance wars against the rest

and chaser Pierre Gouthière, bought for 5,000

of Europe. Article XI of the National Convention’s

livres, and a pair of serpentine vases mounted

official decree declared that once commissioners

with ram’s heads. Amid the mounting criticism

had determined which items could be sold for less

against the national debt and the crown’s expenses,

than 1,000 livres, they were to “gather, as soon as

Louis XVI did not have long to enjoy his purchases

possible, in the same place, the small portions of

before the narrative of dismantlings separated the

furnishings that may exist in different houses and

king from his possessions, many of which ended

belong to the former civil list, in order to accelerate

up as treasures of the French nation at the Louvre

the sales, to evacuate the said houses in the short-

Museum.

est amount of time and to suppress or diminish the



costs necessitated by the upkeep of the furnishings,

56

57

30

Bureaucracy rather than taste governed the

revolutionary auctions, which benefited from the

as well as the houses, parks and gardens.”60

many task forces established by the republican



government to supervise the liquidation of the

prized collection of paintings to the new national

crown’s assets. To oversee the vast array of objects

museum, luxury occupied an ambiguous place,

to be sold at the revolutionary auctions in 1793,

with some objects being sold in massive lots, while

the National Convention elected a ten-​person

others were reserved for display in the Louvre.

committee, which fanned out across the properties

Much of the government’s criteria for determin-

of Versailles, Rambouillet, and Marly (followed by

ing what was to be sold or kept was driven by the

Luxury After the terror

While the government transferred the king’s

need to fill the nation’s coffers rather than careful



aesthetic consideration. For example, all silver-

for the museum made the cut. When Jean-​

ware that was “not precious by its workmanship,

Baptiste-​Pierre Le Brun, the shrewd art dealer

as well as the copper and bronze that could not

and ex-​husband of the exiled painter Élisabeth

be viewed as monuments of art,” was to be sent

Vigée Le Brun, encountered a Sèvres porcelain

to the mint to be turned into currency. Pearls,

garniture—comprised of a ship potpourri, a pair of

diamonds, and other precious jewels met a similar

pink elephant-​head vases, and two lobed vases that

fate. Those found by the commissioners in the resi-

had belonged to the prince de Condé and were

dences were to be sent to experts to be weighed,

confiscated from his former residence at the Palais

classed, and evaluated, after which they would be

du Luxembourg when he fled into exile—he placed

combined with the confiscated jewels of émigrés

the set on the reserve list for museum objects.

and secured in a triple-​locked coffer at the revenue

Despite this initial designation, the govern-

office near the administrator of the National

ment bartered the rare set of soft-​paste porcelain

Domains in Paris. These would then be offered at

vases in 1795 to Citoyenne Marguerite Suzanne

a separate auction overseen by joailliers experts

Denoor (sometimes spelled Denor), a marchande

(jewelry specialists) in Paris.62 Other furnishings

d’estampes et de curiosités, in exchange for her

and objects that remained in the storage of the

husband’s natural history cabinet, demonstrat-

Garde-​Meuble de la Couronne were repurposed by

ing the strange equivalences that emerged as the

the revolutionary government in the offices they

cash-​strapped government sought to bargain with

occupied in former royal palaces. In Section IV

suppliers through the confiscated remains of royal

on the “conservation of monuments of art, and

and aristocratic patrons.64

furnishings necessary to different parts of public



service,” those placed in charge of the sales were

of objects and the financial turmoil caused by

to work with members of the Commission des

the quick deflation of the assignats, the sales

monuments to reserve a number of pieces to be

records from the years 1793 and 1794 housed at the

either placed in the collections of the new national

Archives de Seine-​et-​Oise have the appearance of

museum or used by members of government. The

an orderly list of carefully transcribed transactions,

only named furniture makers in the inventory

neatly bound into notebooks. The registers contain

of objects reserved for the national Muséum was

the date of each sale on a title page along with the

the cabinetmaker André-​Charles Boulle, whose

auctioneer placed in charge of that week’s sale. The

furniture inlaid with tortoiseshell, precious woods,

lot number of each item is listed in a left-​hand col-

and gilded bronze signaled his work as “museum-​

umn, accompanied by descriptions alternatingly

quality” pieces. As Marianne Clerc writes, “the

lengthy and pithy, depending on the item for sale.

complex motifs of marquetry in precious materi-

The buyers and final price are listed at the bot-

als requiring dexterity, the monumentality of the

tom. The same names, such as Geoffroy, Rouger,

smallest piece shaped from ebony and the sump-

and Rocheux, reappear, alongside more surpris-

tuous gilded bronzes designated a work of art

ing names like the famed cabinetmaker Riesener,

without the risk of error.”

who from the September 30, 1793, sale is listed

61

63

Not all the decorative arts objects set aside

In contrast to the radically fluctuating value

Death and Dispersal

31

as purchasing lot number 2340, a writing table

at the shockingly low price of 8,000 livres, even

with gilt bronze mounts and a mosaic tabletop,

though they had been estimated at 150,000 livres.68

for 3,210 livres. Lacking an overall order, the lots

The commission rectified the misjudgment by

intermix paintings with furniture and porcelain,

hunting down the tables and buying them back.

with a number of paired items split into separate

Other objects left France, never to return.

lots, even as each register is insistently methodical.



For example, the October 7, 1793, sale lists a pair

to forty lots, with the objects of lesser value sold in

of gouache paintings by Jean Pillement (lots 2771

the morning and more valuable items offered in the

and 2773), sold for 354 and 381 livres, respectively,

afternoon. Although two auctioneers oversaw the

separated by velour stools and a bed (lot 2772).

sales and a huissier-​audiencier, or bailiff, recorded



65

The process of liquidation gains a rhythm

the sales in a procès-​verbal, mix-​ups regarding

and order in a perusal of the sales registers, where

who bought what often occurred. Names were

luxury items that had once occupied royal spaces

misspelled. A slip of the pen turned J. H. Eberts,

are retranslated into the abstract and tabular

the author and inventor of the Athénienne, a type

format on the space of the page, with no room

of furniture, into the sansculotte journalist Jacques

reserved for the place of the patron. Inventories,

Hébert, founder of the radical journal Le Père

from the medieval treasuries fastidiously kept

Duchesne.69 The participants included merchants,

by the Burgundian courts to the vast machinery of

furniture makers, secondhand-​clothing dealers,

the Garde-​Meuble de la Couronne, had tradition-

and those who dealt in bric-​a-​brac, alongside

ally functioned as the instruments by which keep-

buyers from the public. Some bidders offered false

ers took stock of royal collections and measured

names, promising to procure payment for objects

the wealth and value of the kingdom. Historians

they could not afford, while others joined small

have claimed that bureaucratic order, rather than

associations that bid communally on objects that

the chaotic atmosphere of the market, defined the

were later sold in each other’s shops. Agents, too,

nature of the sales, which depended on a process

circulated at the sales, which turned titular book-

of rapid decision-​making and the coordinated

sellers and publishers, such as Treuttel and Würtz,

implementation of policies that marked a new level

into dealers of art and porcelain.70 The merchant

of administration by a newly centralized govern-

Rocheux purchased objects on behalf of a group of

ment based in Paris. However, one could argue

buyers in Strasbourg, including the Eberts broth-

otherwise that the secondary market at Versailles

ers. Furnishings they purchased, including a set

represents the very space at which revolution-

of a bed and chairs made by the furniture maker

ary time encountered and sought to process the

Georges Jacob for the queen’s bedroom at the Petit

material remains of the past. Given the enormity

Trianon, ended up in Strasbourg.71 Meanwhile,

of the sales, the commissioners were bound to

a trapezoidal console by the queen’s cabinetmaker

make a few mistakes, especially when it came to

Ferdinand Schwerdfeger was exported to Hamburg

the misevaluation of objects, such as a set of four

and eventually ended up in Saint Petersburg in the

tables in petrified wood. The large tables had once

palace of Prince Youssoupoff.72 Many more distin-

belonged to the “wife of the tyrant,” and were sold

guished objects ended up in private collections in

66

67

32

Each session of the auction comprised thirty

Luxury After the terror

England, which was the home of émigrés who had

fraction of the price they had been promised but

fled France during the Revolution. Objects were

never paid after the expiration of the monarchy.

exported to England after the Terror, when buyers

In the case of Riesener, former ébéniste, or cabinet-

could not be found in France, and generally arrived

maker, to the French court, he repurchased pieces

across the Channel through Holland or Hamburg,

of furniture he had originally made for the king

serving as the foundation for an Anglo-​French

and queen. At a sale of furnishings from the

taste invented by nineteenth-​century dealers.

château de Saint-​Cloud in 1794, “citoyen Riesener”



acquired a lavish secretaire that he had delivered

73

Although the primary objective of the auc-

tions at Versailles was to finance France’s ongoing

less than fifteen years earlier, in 1780, to Marie-​

wars during the Revolution, the use of assignats

Antoinette for her use at Versailles. Found today

in transactions meant that the prices were incred-

at Waddesdon Manor, the drop-​front writing desk,

ibly low. It is difficult to estimate the exact price

with its heavy gilt-bronze corner mounts and mar-

of lots, given that the value of assignats fluctuated

quetry, features a French cockerel. Considered out-

daily before they were eventually taken out of

moded by the time it was delivered to Versailles,

circulation by the government in 1796. A number

the desk was quickly relegated to the château

of objects that failed to reach their low estimate

de Saint-​Cloud, where it served as part of the

were withdrawn from the sale, only to be reoffered

temporary furnishings for the country residence

at a much higher price a few months later and

purchased by the queen in 1785. At the auction,

purchased. The government also offered works

Riesener bought the piece for a paltry 3,500 livres,

that failed to find bidders to individuals whom it

less than half the amount he had been paid.77

could not afford to compensate in cash. Along with



the aforementioned Citoyenne Denoor, Jacques

secondhand dealer who saw money to be made

de Chapeaurouge, a businessman from Hamburg,

amid the bric-​a-​brac objects offered at incred-

was paid in 1796 with more than 250 objects from

ibly low prices, there was a former royal artisan

the royal collections for supplying grain to the

who sought to recuperate the results of his labor,

French government. It paid the military contrac-

transforming the auctions into spectacles of loss.

tor Abraham Alcan with exceptional pieces of

While it is probable that the cabinetmaker merely

furniture and tapestry. In lieu of assignats, Alcan

sought to resell his works in the knowledge of their

received rare works of art, including the Beauvais

true worth, seeing his craftsmanship purchased by

tapestry that had been designed by Le Barbier

any bidder must have at least aroused the memory

and a richly lacquered drop-​front secretary and

of the original commissions, perhaps leading him

commode that Riesener had made for Marie-​

to contemplate the question of whether patrons

Antoinette (fig. 7).

equivalent to the monarchy could be found once



Hidden amid the secondhand dealers and

more during the Revolution. Outside of the auc-

intermediary bidders for distinguished foreign

tions, the new government’s requests could have

clients were former court artisans who risked

hardly raised the confidence of artisans hoping to

a chance at securing objects they had made in

secure major commissions. The work of Guillaume

their own workshops, which were being sold for a

Beneman, a former cabinetmaker to Louis XVI,

74

75

76

Riesener’s purchase is poignant. For every

Death and Dispersal

33

Fig. 7 Jean-​Henri Riesener, drop-​ front secretary (secrétaire en armoire), 1783. Oak veneered with ebony and seventeenth-​ century Japanese lacquer; interiors veneered with tulipwood, amaranth, holly, and ebonized holly; gilt-​ bronze mounts, marble top, and velvet, 144.8 × 109.2 × 40.6 cm. Bequest of William K. Vanderbilt, 1920, 20.115.11. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Photo: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

is a case in point. After the National Convention

to the committee with Phrygian bonnets replac-

issued an official decree on July 4, 1793, banning all

ing the royal insignia. In the recollections of Paul

exterior signs of despotism found on buildings and

Barras, Robespierre was said to have lain on the

churches, Beneman found himself in the extraor-

same table after attempting suicide at the Hôtel

dinary position of working at the Conciergerie

de Ville while fighting off his arrest and eventual

prison, where he applied himself by removing the

condemnation by the Revolutionary Tribunal.79

royal insignias that had decorated the confiscated



furniture of royalist émigrés. On 15 Messidor, year

on objects sold at the auctions emerged only in

II (July 3, 1794), the Committee of Public Safety

the course of the nineteenth century, the Versailles

sent a large desk that had originally been made

auctions fed the voracious appetite for secondhand

for the château de Choisy in 1744 to Beneman,

goods in Paris, regardless of political affiliations.

requesting him to “remove the feudal signs that

When the royal privilege granted to the guild of

prevailed in the bronze embellishment.” Eleven

auctioneers was abolished in 1793, new auction

days later, the cabinetmaker sent the table back

houses in Paris appeared overnight, competing

78

34

Luxury After the terror

Though legends regarding the cut-​rate deals

to sell off confiscated and possibly stolen goods. One upholsterer competed with the official sales in Versailles by offering the sale of “the furnishings and effects from the condemned,” while a furniture maker transformed his shop into an auction house, charging a 6 percent commission on everything.80 At places such as the hôtel Bullion, everything on display was for sale. With so much material on the market, buyers rarely exercised caution in determining whether objects had been legitimately purchased or had simply been pillaged. Even those holding political office were implicated, as suggested by a print representing the president of a committee making off with silverware after the removal of seals, referring to the seals that were placed upon a suspect’s domicile (fig. 8). In the words of Louis Sébastien Mercier, from wigs to beds to clocks, all were sold at a low price “by dealmakers, by intriguers who had the secret of fabricating assignats . . . who hoarded priceless masterpieces for useless pieces of paper.”81

Fig. 8 Anonymous, Président d’un comité révolutionnaire, après la levée d’un scelé, 1794–95. Color engraving, 19.5 × 16 cm. G 25948, Musée Carnavalet, Paris. Photo: Paris Musées.

Even for those who managed to escape execu-

tion, disinheritance proved a fatal blow and was intended to prevent émigrés from returning to

my mahogany furniture . . . provisions of all

France. Such measures were subsequently taken

sorts, tableware, paintings, busts, jewelry and

against anyone deemed an enemy of the state.

precious effects . . . all of my correspondence,

No one was immune, and dispossession affected

my manuscripts, and many papers that friends had

several notable figures who had been hailed

entrusted to me . . . all of this was taken and trans-

as celebrities during the ancien régime. Baron

ported to I know not where, or was sold at auction,

von Grimm, the catty Enlightenment journalist

or removed by those who had long prepared for

and contributor to the Encyclopédie, recalled the

this underhanded pillaging.”82 Though colored in

horrors of discovering that his own property had

part by his paranoia and distrust of the servants in

been seized while he was in exile in 1793, just a

his own household, Grimm’s statement nonetheless

few months after Louis XVI had been guillotined.

illustrates the ways in which the secondary market

He recalled, “I was two hundred leagues away

worked in tandem with revolutionary confisca-

from Paris at the time, and they needed less than

tions to liquidate the past luxuries of the ancien

three weeks to clean out my entire house. All my

régime. With no possibility of returning, Grimm

possessions, clothes, bed linens and bedclothes,

lived for the remainder of his years in Gotha.

Death and Dispersal

35



Many of the wealthy and elite who had

prospered under the crown never returned to

and a false passport. Despite returning to France

reclaim their possessions. This was the case for

briefly from 1790 to the spring of the following

Charles-​Claude Flahaut de la Billarderie, the comte

year, d’Angiviller was forced to leave for a second

d’Angiviller, the directeur général des Bâtiments

and final time; his valet described France as full

du Roi, who served as Louis XVI’s culture min-

of “revolutionary anthropophages, more set upon

ister and close confidante on the crown’s many

dismembering the skeletal remains of this country

artistic and architectural projects, from the Royal

than their claims to regenerate it.”85 Before fleeing

Academy to the plans to redesign Versailles. The

France a second time, d’Angiviller entrusted his

engraver Johann Georg Wille recalled a par-

silver plate to the American diplomat Gouverneur

ticularly memorable evening on September 13,

Morris, a known sympathizer of Louis XVI and

1787, just two years before the start of the French

admirer of Marie-​Antoinette, who managed to

Revolution, when he and other members of the

remain in Paris despite the increasing political

Royal Academy were invited to dine at the Parisian

unrest of the Terror. The rest of the former min-

residence that the comte d’Angiviller shared with

ister’s belongings at Versailles had quickly been

his wife when he was not at the court of Versailles

placed under seal after his departure and claimed

for official work. As a military man, courtier, and

as national property.86 In 1794, Morris found him-

minister for Louis XVI, he had amassed a con-

self in the difficult position of having to hide the

siderable fortune and art collection, while the

disgraced minister’s plate in his home and wrote

salons overseen by his wife at the hôtel d’Angiviller

to the exiled count of the dangers of keeping such

on the rue de l’Oratoire were lively affairs where

hefty and visible forms of luxury concealed: “You

artists, men of letters, and elite cultural figures

can imagine how often I wished to be relieved of

conversed in a spirited manner: “We were, if I am

the trust. My servants had seen the plate brought

not mistaken, 36 to 38 persons at table. The meal

in, they knew that it was still in the house, and

was of an extraordinary magnificence, served in

I had reason not to trust them.”87 Whereas Wille

an immense and most superb silverware. Nothing

had reveled in the dazzling effects of the count’s

was out of place.” For a member of the Academy,

tableware, Morris sought in vain to find an agent

having a seat at the table of the count would have

or accomplice willing to relieve him of this bur-

been particularly impressive, since d’Angiviller

densome trust: “There was at the time no money

not only oversaw the crown’s major artistic and

exchange with foreign countries, all operations

architectural commissions as head of the building

of the kind having been forbidden under penalty

works but also commanded the royal manufac-

of death.”88

tories, the royal academies of painting, sculpture,



and architecture, and also the Observatory and the

converting the currency first into assignats, Morris

Académie de France in Rome.

finally managed to obtain 47,272 livres after the



sale of the silver. Even as he counseled George

83

84

36

abuses and fled to Spain with only his loyal valet

On July 28, 1789, two years after the magnifi-

Through a complex transaction that involved

cent repast, d’Angiviller abandoned his post after

Washington to develop a plain and simple taste fit-

a series of public accusations of corruption and

ting the new president of a young republic, Morris

Luxury After the terror

was a lover of luxury who sought to retain some of

van mode en smaak from 1794, discovered by Jean-

the ancien régime splendor he had enjoyed while

Charles Davillier, which described the auctions

stationed in Paris, bringing back a considerable

for Dutch readers. It described thirty-​seven lots

number of French furnishings to his New York

offered at the Versailles auction, in the belief that

estate at Morrisania, including Marie-​Antoinette’s

the list would serve “as an enduring souvenir of the

armchair. While Morris may have been able to

incredible luxury of the richest Court in Europe,

freely enjoy the delights of ancien régime France

of which no trace remains of its grandeur today.”92

in the context of a newly established United States,

Sèvres porcelain in particular was singled out as

luxury objects such as d’Angiviller’s silver service,

representative of the luxury of the extinguished

once viewed as key to the social rituals of the

French court. Porcelain cabarets, or sets for drink-

ancien régime, had transformed into burdensome

ing coffee and tea, clocks, and garnitures reap-

and dangerous reminders of the recent past in the

pear again and again amid a sea of beds, chairs,

context of the new French nation; the count died

commodes, and desks in the offered lots described

in exile in Germany in 1810, never to return to

by the journal. As we will see in chapter 5, ancien

France.

régime porcelain would look remarkably different

89

from the kinds of luxuries produced at the Sèvres manufactory after the Revolution. The wistful, ekphrastic descriptions and the attention to each

Luxury Lost and Found

itemized object betray a knowledge of the true Dispersal, no matter how forcefully undertaken

worth of such objects and a wonder at the lost

by the French government, could never fully

splendors of the monarchy. The vocabulary used

eradicate the material traces of the recent past.

is a far cry from the succinct statements in the

Moreover, the recirculation and redistribution of

official registers of the revolutionary sales kept in

objects transformed the exclusivity of luxury from

the archives. For example, the journal described

singular possessions intended for a specific archi-

a cabaret, or tea and coffee service, from the sale

tectural setting into a participatory and collective

of furnishings of the Petit Trianon, in the follow-

“purchase of the past.” The auctions made pos-

ing manner: “A cabaret or déjeuner, consisting of

sible the redistribution of luxury from elite spaces

a tray decorated with two cups and their saucers

to the bric-​a-​brac shops filled with ancien régime

with a sugar bowl, all of it of the finest Sèvres

goods that would colonize the literary imagina-

porcelain, in a blue ground, with incrustation of

tion of the early nineteenth century. According to

garlands in pearls and enamel gems, as well as

Stammers, history, too, was a product of the auc-

the medallion in little gold plaques. Represented

tions, where the Revolution’s “disruptive fury—pil-

on each of these pieces in miniature, in the most

laging chateaux, dissolving monasteries, disman-

beautiful and latest finish, is a historic scene

tling clerical libraries—helped redistribute and

taken from the Adventures of Telemachus, which

reclassify a whole host of historical souvenirs.”91

comprises nine little superb tableaux. One of these



cups represents Venus receiving the apple, and the

90

The sense of lost splendor conjured by the

auctions is evident in a journal article in Kabinet

saucer adds: To the most beautiful. L. 3000.”93

Death and Dispersal

37

Fig. 9 Sèvres Manufactory, decorated by Étienne-​Henri Le Guay, cup and saucer, ca. 1780–85. Soft-​paste porcelain decorated in polychrome, jeweled enamels, and gold, 6.8 × 9.4 × 6.9 cm (cup); 3.5 × 13.9 cm (saucer). Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Bequest of Forsyth Wickes—The Forsyth Wickes Collection, 65.1808a-​b. Photo © 2022 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.



The subject matter and distinctive jeweled

decoration can be connected to the incomplete

38

agate designs after the Revolution (fig. 9).94 If this cup and saucer once formed part of the cabaret

service made by Sèvres for Louis XVI’s use at

described in Kabinet van mode en smaak, it sug-

Versailles, which will be discussed in the context

gests that individual lots may have been divided

of chapter 5. A cup and saucer with the inscrip-

and sold off separately, dismantling the “joy of

tion “To the most beautiful” in Boston has a

sets” so integral to the ancien régime arrange-

similar decoration with imitation agates and

ment and delectation of luxury objects, into single

strands of pearl, coral, and gold, a delicate jew-

collectibles.95 The author’s detailed description of

eled style of decoration that would ultimately be

the service evokes in full the lost splendor of the

replaced by trompe l’oeil marble, hardstone, and

French court; while the architectural settings of the

Luxury After the terror

ci-​devant monarchy may have been repurposed to

moment of the first universal public museum.

revolutionary uses, the fragments of luxury that

Part of this may be explained by scholarly inter-

were available for purchase became souvenirs of

est in the formation of a “patriotic” taste and the

the past. Materials once dismissed by eighteenth-​

reception of art during the eighteenth century in

century critics as inimical to the lasting founda-

the creation of a national patrimony. By contrast,

tions of patriotic virtue ended up outlasting the

histories of the market have tended to focus on

regimes and patrons for whom they had once been

the identities of patrons and how their personali-

made, becoming superfluous relics of their age.

ties shaped the particular contours of a collection,



while neglecting to mention the ultimate dispersal

Porcelains, tables, chairs, and bureaus present

a peculiar problem for the study of the French

of such collections through auctions, which have

Revolution. On the one hand, the possessions liq-

been dismissed for the most part as transactional

uidated at auction constituted part of the broader

events in the movement from one private collec-

political debates on the national debt and finance

tion to the next, and in the fluctuating price of an

that changed ideas about what money was and

exceptional work of art. Nonetheless, the auctions

whom it was for. On the other hand, royal luxury,

introduced sites for beholding art that emerged at

as a potent signifier of the recent past, continued

the intersection of two different political regimes

to persist even after the removal of the symbols of

and systems of value. In lieu of the discerning

despotism and feudalism had been called for, and

vision of the connoisseur and his collection that

long after the king and queen had been executed.

had done much to drive the artistic discourse

Enabling a liquidity through the liquidation of

and market of ancien régime France, the forced

material possessions, the revolutionary auctions

dispersal of art and luxury shaped alternative

represented the ways in which the art market

forms of artistic evaluation. Within the political

participated in and profited from political and

culture of the period, the auctions can be posi-

economic change, functioning as a nexus between

tioned as a counter-​site to the national archive

privately held works of art and the public. Certain

created at the same moment. For if the archive

objects, such as the rare furnishings by the ébéniste

depends on a mechanism of accrual and perpetual

Boulle, were culled from the lists and carefully

reorganization to deal with the unending “fever” of

kept and preserved in the national museum at the

documents that fill its spaces—all the while accu-

Louvre and thus were transformed into a form of

mulating the dust of history ardently inhaled by

national patrimony. The lots that were released

Jules Michelet—auctions operate as the merciless

for resale at the auctions had unstable meanings;

mechanism for a letting go of the physical remains

their worth and value were determined not only

and remainders of the past, liquidating in turn

by the market or collective politics but also by the

any personal meaning they may have had for their

personal and highly idiosyncratic systems of belief

former owners.97

96

(and purse strings) of the most determined bidder.

Disinheritance is not often considered a

primary legacy of the cultural politics of the Revolution, which is seen instead as the founding

Death and Dispersal

39

O

n September 22, 1789, with France’s fear of its debt crisis reaching a fever pitch, the Bastille already in crumbled

ruins, and the royal coffers nearly empty, King Louis XVI sent his precious plate to the royal mint. In a letter he had addressed to the clergy of France three weeks earlier, he wrote of his willingness to sacrifice all he could for the economy and for the happiness of his people, including the “pomp and

Chapter 2

pleasures of the throne—which have become bit-

Henry Auguste

and gold vessels, even the knife handles from his

Precious Metals in the Age of Terror

ter to me for some time.”1 The king sent his silver cutlery, to be melted down and converted into bullion in order to replenish the nation’s dwindling coffers. These were followed by the offerings of Queen Marie-​Antoinette, the king’s aunts, his brothers and sister, and other noblemen. Prior to the king’s sacrificial gesture, Adélaïde-​Marie-​ Anne Castellas, the patriotic wife of the sculptor Jean-​Guillaume Moitte, had already led a delegation of women to the National Assembly decked in elegant Roman tunics; they solemnly offered their jewels to be sacrificed to the national debt in a casket that contained “93 silver tokens, three silver goblets, 24 silver buttons, four pairs of gold bracelets, three gold medallions, eight gold rings, three pairs of hoop earrings, five thimbles, two purse strings (coulants de bourse), a watch strap, a souvenir, five cases (étuis), an embroidery needle, two women’s boxes, a medal of Frédéric V, king of Denmark, all in gold, and a purse holding sixteen louis d’or coins” (fig. 10).2 These small but precious tokens of patriotism were supplemented elsewhere in France by nuns and clergymen who offered up their church plate. The city of Issoudun collected shoe buckles in the hope that “all of the silver shoe buckles in the realm would amount to 3 million.”3 The total sum melted in the hope of easing France’s

Fig. 10 Jean-​Guillaume Moitte (artist), Jean-​Baptiste Lucien (engraver), and Jean Louis Charles Pauquet (engraver), Hommage à la deuxième legislature: première bas-​relief placé sur l’Arc de Triomphe elevé au Champ de Mars, pour la Fédération Générale des Français, célébrée à Paris le 14 juillet 1790, 1791. Engraving, 24.2 × 43.5 cm. G.28212, Musée Carnavalet, Paris. Paris Musées.

debt burden weighed an estimated 54,857 kilos of

financial ruin and debt, and, of course, paper.

silver and 187 kilos of gold. It was not enough.

Officially taken out of circulation on January 30,

All the king’s gold and silver could not put France

1796, the assignats had a longer print run in their

back on its feet again. In December 1789, with nei-

afterlife, in the form of trompe l’oeil engravings

ther authority nor a constitution, the newly estab-

that pictured the various iterations of the paper

lished National Assembly began issuing assignats,

currency amassed in illusionistic piles as madden-

interest-​bearing printed bonds initially backed

ingly flat and valueless as the actual money itself.5

by the sale of property seized by the govern-



ment. These eventually became the country’s first

of the past have become a source of fascination

national paper currency, which went into and out

for scholars of revolutionary France seeking to put

of circulation in less than a decade, leaving behind

the recent events of our own late capitalist crises,

a devastating trail of speculation and inflation,

such as the financial crash of 2008, into historical

4

42

Luxury After the terror

The economic traumas and monetary crises

perspective.6 In the attempts to signal how the fis-

to traditional luxury materials, particularly gold,

cal debates over the assignats constituted a point of

and gave rise to alternative significations of a

origin for our modern political culture, few have

distinctly irrational nature. While France invested

considered the materials that suddenly became

paper money with its hopes for a new economic

a part of “outdated” value systems of the ancien

future out of the national debt, it was through the

régime, especially gold. Indeed, the revolutionary

medium of print, according to Richard Taws’s work

scenarios of precious plate being sacrificed on the

on trompe l’oeil prints of assignats, that the French

altar of patriotic duty, muse-​like women throw-

“acted out” their economic traumas in the postrev-

ing gold boxes, hoops, thimbles, and needles into

olutionary period.8 Given the symbolic importance

the fiery furnace of the mint, and a paper money

of paper as a medium, what then was the place of

fresh off the press resemble less of the image of

gold, a material that the French by turns fetishized,

a modern political culture based on a reasoned

hoarded, and fantasized about, even as their day-​

discourse of political economy, and more of a

to-​day monetary transactions took place through

return to the base language of fetishism, which

paper? This charged context makes the gold ewer

the Enlightenment writer Charles de Brosses

that Auguste executed in 1790 for the English

viewed as the irrational source of all religion.

collector William Beckford particularly unusual,

Across times and cultures, humans had invested

not only because of the purity of the gold used to

gold with extraordinary powers, which made its

fashion it during a time of material scarcity but

sacrifice all the more striking, as de Brosses wrote

also because of the ways in which the vessel figures

in recalling an encounter between the “savages”

the aesthetic anxieties that emerged about value

of Cuba and the Spanish: “no Divinity was more

with the demise of royal sovereignty (plate 5). The

harmful to Savages than gold, which they certainly

ewer remains one of the only surviving examples

believed to be the Fetish of the Spanish. . . . The

of eighteenth-​century French goldsmiths’ work to

Barbarians of Cuba, knowing that a Castilian fleet

be fashioned from pure gold. Its survival cer-

was about to land on their island, decided they

tainly depended on the fact that it was intended

had to appease the Spanish god in order to be rid

for Beckford, an English connoisseur and lover

of him. They gathered all their gold in a basket. . . .

of French art who profited from revolutionary

They danced and sang around it according to reli-

instability by purchasing a number of works once

gious custom, then threw it into the sea.” Hidden

in the French king’s possession and absconding

and hoarded during the financial panic, gold was

with them back to England.9 Beckford was clearly

everywhere on everyone’s mind, yet scarcely to be

fond of the ewer, keeping it at his estate at Fonthill

seen, its absence palpably felt each time an assignat

Abbey until his death in 1823. Passed down in the

changed hands as a form of payment.

family until the twentieth century, it then entered



the collection of Martine-​Marie-​Pol de Béhague,

7

This chapter explores the work of the Parisian

goldsmith Henry Auguste within the financial

comtesse de Béarn.10 While scholarship on the

tremors and terrors of revolutionary France, and

ewer has focused on its dazzling provenance, turn-

how the introduction of a paper currency desta-

ing our attention to the maker will reveal the trans-

bilized the symbolic value that had been granted

formations that took place in artisanal identities.

Henry Auguste

43



Alongside the dispersal and dispossession

remains scarce. In stark contrast to the migrations

of the royal collections (the focus of the previ-

to Florence, Rome, Hamburg, London, and Saint

ous chapter on the auctions), the dissolution of

Petersburg of French artists who went in search

the monarchy prompted other forms of profes-

of markets for their work after the Revolution,

sional dispossession, specifically for artisans

Auguste’s voyage to Haiti, the site of the world’s

whose mastery of costly materials had closely

first successful slave revolt, is a historical aber-

depended on the sovereign, who had symbolically

ration. His demise there, after his rejection and

guaranteed the standard and worth of precious

condemnation by the French state for refusing

metals. Auguste’s work as a goldsmith at the end

to pay his mounting debts, casts the arc of his

of the monarchy occurred at a moment when he

professional life in a different light by unraveling

sought to untether his career from commissioned

the “grand narratives” of the French Revolution

works to objects of a more experimental and

and the recuperated meanings of luxury during the

idiosyncratic nature, particularly a reliquary he

Napoleonic period. Whereas mastery, craftsman-

made for his wife after the Terror. Though he was

ship, and trust had functioned as the hallmarks of

far from a sophisticated financier or tax farmer,

the goldsmiths, one of the most prestigious and

Auguste nonetheless plunged into the heady world

powerful guilds in Paris since the medieval period,

of making money, turning from a goldsmith with

Auguste’s dispossession is tied to the dissolution

artistic pretensions into something of an amateur

of the guild system, the monarchy, and the very

economist and inventor, an engraver of medals,

language of mastery itself.

and an author. The same year Auguste created the gold ewer, he began publishing a series of pamphlets that engaged with the heated public debates

Auguste Makes His Mark

on the national currency. While the Revolution

44

provided him with a period of personal reinven-

Auguste executed the golden ewer for Beckford

tion, it also marked a regressive materiality in his

in 1790, when he was at the height of his pow-

works, as he returned to the alchemical roots of

ers and recognized for his ability to translate the

goldsmithing—except that here, the goal was not

language of antiquity into precious vessels of

to transform base materials into gold but to con-

exceptional beauty and expense. Weighing a hefty

vert church bells and other vestiges of the despotic

857 grams, or 30.226 ounces, the ewer was raised,

past into metallic currency.

chased, and cast from a gold of a higher standard



of purity than the 24-karat gold typically used to

My account of Auguste is indebted to the

extensive biographical and archival research

make precious jewelry today. Two bands divide the

undertaken by Yves Carlier, though it highlights

ewer’s lip, neck, and body, while a calyx decorated

somewhat differently the speculative and phantas-

with acanthus leaves separates the body from the

magorical end of Auguste’s life in Port-​au-​Prince,

foot. Based on a design by the sculptor Moitte, the

Haiti. His death in the former French colony

piece’s sharply chiseled profile evokes the austere

merits our historical consideration, even if the

vases of classical antiquity, which also provided

archival documentation of his final years in Haiti

the inspiration for the ornamental frieze found at

Luxury After the terror

Fig. 11 Henry Auguste, after a design by Jean-​Guillaume Moitte, “Beckford-​Béhague” ewer, 1790, detail. Gold and ebonized fruitwood, 29 cm, 857 g. Private collection.

the shoulder of the vessel, set with motifs of seated



griffons and foliage, the double-​headed profile

narratives of the French Revolution. While the

of Janus, Roman god of thresholds, and the face of

national debt formed the immediate context for

Mercury, god of commerce, communication, and

the patriotic bonfires of precious metals that this

Goldsmiths are largely absent from the artistic

eloquence, but also of deception and trickery

chapter began with, a longer history of the precari-

(fig. 11). The ebony handle coils around the Spartan

ous nature of gold made it the least commemo-

body of the vessel; the two are attached by means

rative of media at a time when revolutionaries

of a cast female head turned outward, gazing upon

sought a language of permanence and immuta-

the handle wriggling out of the top of her head like

bility. As Carlier writes, “Rare are the Parisian

one enormous ebony lock amid her tresses of gold.

goldsmiths whose names have withstood time

Auguste Orfèvre du Roi A Paris 1790 is proudly

and have not been forgotten, as a consequence of

incised inside the foot and next to the marks.

the disappearance of their productions by being

Henry Auguste

45

melted down during times of crisis or because

authority upon the self-​organized and -governing

of the caprices of fashion.” Out of all the distin-

artisanal communities of Paris.15

guished artisans who worked for the French court,



goldsmiths’ productions were nearly always threat-

goldsmiths’ guild and its stringent regulations.

ened with annihilation, among the most infamous

To become a master and open a shop, a boy around

instances being Louis XIV’s massive destruction

the age of ten to sixteen had to undertake an

of his silver furniture in 1689. Such circumstances

apprenticeship in the workshop of a master, serv-

have made the reputations of certain goldsmiths,

ing for two years as a journeyman or compagnon.

such as Benvenuto Cellini, all the more excep-

Once the training had been completed, he had to

tional. Cellini’s artisanal knowledge enabled him to

wait for a mastership to be made available, since

transform objects such as the saltcellar he made for

memberships in the guild were strictly limited.

Francis I into masterpieces displaying a salty man-

When a spot opened, the candidate would take an

nerist wit. Even in his case, the taboo of money

oral exam before the wardens: potential goldsmiths

haunted his reputation, for goldsmiths are typically

were asked about the table of weights, the price

treated by art historians as little more than glori-

and qualities of gold, and how to alloy pure silver

fied bankers or money changers, the artistic worth

to make it to the right Paris standard. Questions

of their labor secondary to the monetary value of

about moral integrity were also posed, in order

their raw materials.

to determine whether an individual was honest



A crowned fleur-​de-​lis, two crossed palms

enough to uphold the standards of the trade.16

with two grains on either side, and the initials H A:

Next came the chef d’oeuvre, an object that was

this was the mark that Henry Auguste deposited

produced before the judges to prove one’s skills.

at the royal mint in Paris on April 20, 1785, when

This was often a modest piece, such as a spoon or

he was accepted into the goldsmith’s guild, adding

simple vessel, that could be executed within a few

one extra palm to the mark of his equally famous

hours in front of the judges who were inspecting

goldsmith father. Auguste was born on March 18,

the candidate.17 If deemed successful, the wardens

1759, to Louise-​Élisabeth Barge and Robert-​

took the candidate to the mint, where he pledged

11

12

13

14

46

Fear of fraud drove the heavy policing of the

Joseph Auguste, goldsmith to Louis XVI. As gold-

an oath to uphold the standards of the guild, and a

smiths, Auguste père et fils were members of one

security was paid by a sponsoring master. Finally,

of the most powerful and prosperous corporations

the goldsmith registered his marks with the royal

in Paris, and one of the most heavily policed since

mint by striking them on a copper plaque kept

the medieval period. By 1260, the trade’s official

there. The workshop was to be located in a place

statutes had been codified in writing by Étienne

visible to the public, and, as Faith Dennis notes,

Boileau, the provost of Paris, in order to protect the

even “the forge had to be in full view of customers,

reputation of goldsmiths. The Paris municipal stat-

passers-​by, and the zealous wardens of the guild,

utes were replaced in 1679 by a royal statute issued

as a precaution against fraud” (fig. 12).18 Trust was

by Louis XIV, which effectively placed the guild

paramount to a goldsmith’s reputation.

under the surveillance of the crown in Versailles,



pointing to the increasing encroachment of royal

upon his acceptance into the guild, guaranteed

Luxury After the terror

Marks, such as the one deposited by Auguste

958/1,000 pure silver, a higher level of purity than sterling silver today. The standard for gold was set at 916/1,000 for large pieces, and 843/1,000 for small pieces.20 Paris silver had four primary marks. The first was the warden’s mark, known as the poinçon de jurande, which followed a letter-​ date system that allowed one to identify which warden had certified the piece’s standard of purity and when. These marks usually featured a crown with a letter underneath that changed each year. The next two marks were the charge and discharge marks, known respectively as the poinçon de charge and the poinçon de décharge, which served to officially register and assay the raw material used, and to levy tax on the completed work. After the marks, the goldsmith would take the piece of silver intended for use to the farmer-​general, or tax collector, to whom the right to collect taxes was farmed out by the royal government. He would then place the charge mark. After the piece was finished, it would be taken back to the tax farmer, the duty would be paid, and the discharge mark Fig. 12 J. R. Lucotte (engraver), “Orfèvre Grossier,” plate 1 from Encyclopédie dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, 1771. Engraving. Gift of Mrs. George A. Kubler; 1949152-2, Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, New York.

would be added to the finished piece to certify that the tax had been paid. Last but not least was the maker’s mark, the goldsmith’s personal mark that had been deposited with the office of the royal mint.

While marks and vigilant surveillance may

have protected the Parisian goldsmiths’ guild from the purity of the metal used to make a piece and

fraud, they did not prevent their work from the

also functioned as indicators of the date and place

constant threat of monetary crisis. The pressure

of its fabrication, the identity of its maker, and

of money affected Paris goldsmiths acutely in

a certification that duties had been paid to the

two ways. First, the regulations imposed by the

mint. Known as poinçons in French, these marks

Bureau de la Marque were constantly opposed

were placed in specific locations on an object,

because of allegations of the abuse of office, with

depending on its size and type. In Paris, marks

goldsmiths accusing officials of selling their

guaranteed that the work was made from a metal

services to fraudulent practitioners and permit-

that was an alloy up to the city standard, set at

ting metals of lesser quality to officially circulate

19

Henry Auguste

47

on the market.21 Second, objects could always

of Louis XIV’s courtiers, was gone in a blaze of fire

potentially be melted down and sacrificed in times

by May 1690.

of war, debt, or with the arrival of new fashions.



The work of royal goldsmiths was particularly

would have been well aware of both the pres-

vulnerable to destruction at any moment, since

tige and the precarity of toiling on behalf of the

their labor was simply a placeholder, a means

French crown. His father had worked for Louis XV

of holding currency in reserve before it was

alongside the Roettiers family and had ushered

melted down for the king’s use; an object’s weight

in a new taste for precious vessels inspired by

would be liquidated into louis d’or in a process

classical antiquity, a direct contrast to the rococo

of conversion that would ultimately render the

pieces favored just a few decades earlier. Auguste

cost of craftsmanship worthless. Such destruc-

senior was in such demand that the royal mint

tion was often conceived as an act of royal power,

had a special account for him. In April 1778 alone,

as exemplified by the melting down of Louis XIV’s

he brought 4,000 marks of silver to be marked,

precious silver furniture in 1689. When Louis XIV

attesting to the large number of works he executed

decided to commission nearly two hundred pieces

for his distinguished clientele.26 In an age of luxury

of silver furniture for his newly refurbished palace

and publicity, Auguste’s name signified a status and

at Versailles, the decision was clearly an attempt,

quality apart from the other goldsmiths active

in the words of Béatrix Saule, at “the sacralization

in Paris, to the degree that even a small object,

of power.” Although Spain’s colonies in the New

such as a gold box decorated with pilasters and

World created a glut of precious metals circulating

bas-​relief figures, sold at the 1767 auction of Jean

throughout seventeenth-​century Europe, silver

de Jullienne’s collection, was described as “parfaite-

was most commonly used as currency and was

ment exécutée par M. Auguste.”27 Working under

rarely used to create residential furniture, with

his father’s tutelage granted Henry privileged access

the exception of its incorporation into liturgical

to royal commissions, allowing him to execute

spaces. Human-​scale ewers and vases, candela-

works for the royal family even before he had offi-

bras, chandeliers, and tapestries woven of silver

cially gained entrance into the Paris guild.28 In 1784,

decorated the spaces of Versailles, culminating in

he accompanied his father to the Garde-​Meuble

the Sun King’s throne room in the Salon of Apollo.

de la Couronne, where he witnessed the melting

The awe and envy of distinguished visitors to

down of textiles woven from threads of gold and

Versailles, the silver furniture disappeared virtu-

silver; the remaining precious metals were sold to

ally overnight on December 3, 1689, when the king

“Auguste père et fils.”29 A year after his mastership,

had his pieces sent to the mint in order to finance

Auguste had become a celebrated goldsmith in his

the War of the League of Augsburg. His court-

own right, lauded for his “talent that is perhaps

iers were naturally expected to follow suit. As one

superior to that of his father.”30 He took over the

commentator noted, “So much silver is taken to

family workshop near the Place du Carrousel and

the mint that it could not melt down all that was

began to establish his own name as a goldsmith in a

taken there.” All of the royal silver, including that

city that was on the verge of a financial breakdown.

22

23

24

25

48

As the son of a royal goldsmith, Auguste

Luxury After the terror

noted, he effectively channeled the spirit of the

Gold in the Dry Manner

classical past with what he called his “dry” manIn order to keep up with the demands of fash-

ner of drawing: “The dryness [sécheresse] found

ionable Paris, the Auguste workshop relied on

at times in his nudes announces him as a dis-

the designs of artists to update their models and

ciple of the ancients, who captured their allure,

decorative motifs. While Robert-​Joseph prob-

practiced their studies, and intensified their

ably utilized designs supplied by the sculptors

theory.”35 Perhaps a subtle play on the sculptor’s

Augustin Pajou and Étienne-​Maurice Falconet,

name (“moist” in French), the purported dry-

Henry turned to Moitte, a younger and lesser-​

ness of Moitte’s technique was first recognized

known sculptor at the time. Fourteen years older

by critics in the models for vessels he produced

than Auguste, Moitte was the son of an academic

for Auguste. The sculptor likely began supplying

engraver and received his training at the Royal

the Auguste family with designs after his return

Academy. From an early age, the young sculptor

from Rome during the 1770s, when his ill health

was so sickly and fragile that his first teacher, Jean-​

made it impossible for him to chisel larger forms

Baptiste Pigalle, forced him to study under his own

in marble.36 According to one account, Moitte

teacher, Jean-​Baptiste Lemoyne, because Pigalle’s

produced “perhaps more than a thousand draw-

studio was too far and Lemoyne was located much

ings in this genre,” although it is more likely that

closer to the frail pupil’s home. Moitte showed

his designs for tureens, boxes, wine coolers, bowls,

exceptional promise by winning the prestigious

and ewers were mixed in with models already cre-

grand prix for sculpture in 1768 for a relief of

ated by Robert-​Joseph and his son.37 The majority

David holding the head of Goliath in triumph. The

of the drawings by Moitte in the Auguste work-

subject must have resonated with him after he was

shop were subsequently bought by Jean-​Baptiste-​

chased down by other students, who felt that he

Claude Odiot, a rival goldsmith to Auguste, who

31

32

purchased them at auction in 1809 and 1812, and

did not deserve to win the prize. The attack was violent enough that Pigalle had to rescue Moitte.

whose workshop stamp firmly marks the draw-

He eventually traveled to Rome in 1771 after win-

ing sheets that had once belonged to the Auguste

ning a royal pension, and undertook sketches of

family.38 It takes a bit of detective work to sort out

sarcophagi, vessels, and monuments. He stayed in

which drawings were done by Moitte, which were

Rome until 1773, unable to execute a single sculp-

by the goldsmith’s own hands, and which sketches

ture while there because of constant sickness. His

were subsequently executed in the workshop of

ill health continued in Paris, where he recuperated

Odiot. A rare drawing signed by Henry suggests

amid his family, producing little until 1777.34

a stylistic difference between the sculptor’s more



dramatic renderings, with sections of wash applied

33

In striking contrast to his own fragile health,

Moitte’s compositions often picture heroic, virile

in distinctive layers and splotches, and the gold-

figures inspired by classical antiquity and depicted

smith’s more annotative method of drawing, where

in bold contrasts using wash and strong outlines.

greater attention has been paid to his signature

As the critic Toussaint-​Bernard Eméric-​David

than the object to be executed (fig. 13).39

Henry Auguste

49

Fig. 13 Henry Auguste, design for a covered tureen on a footed stand. Pen and brown ink, brush and gray-​brown wash, 19.9 × 14.9 cm. The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1978, 1978.638.2. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Photo: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.



50

Moitte’s designs for the Auguste workshop

and oftentimes tortured by serpentine handles that

combine stern, classically inspired forms and

seem to wriggle past their function as grips, snakes

writhing ornaments, creating a style that is alterna-

on a plane that undo the flatness of the surface,

tively dry and wet, stiff and sinuous, highly unlike

as seen in a workshop drawing for a ewer by

the designs that the architect Charles Percier and

Moitte that was very likely the source for the ewer

his student Louis-​Hippolyte Lebas provided for the

created for Beckford (fig. 14).41 One could perhaps

goldsmith Martin-​Guillaume Biennais.40 Unlike

interpret these tormented designs as the sculptor’s

the architectural rigor of Percier and Lebas’s

personal desire to create larger, more heroic forms,

designs, which appear more like miniaturized

but in reality being restricted to models for decora-

monuments than vessels for the table, Moitte’s

tive objects for the table because of his health. For

models carry pinched, petrified faces with long

as one biographer noted, although Moitte achieved

aquiline noses positioned in profile, accompanied

early success as a draftsman working for the

Luxury After the terror

Fig. 14 Jean-​Guillaume Moitte, design for a ewer with a Grecian mask, ca. 1790. Black lead, pen and black ink, gray and black wash, 33 × 22.9 cm. © Christie’s Images Limited (2008).

Auguste workshop, “he had a first-​rate reputation

depth across a plane.43 This technique bestowed

as a designer in terms of style, purity and compo-

Auguste’s executed works with a chiseled precision

sition: but it was not statuary.”42 Moitte’s great-

quite different from that of his father, since Henry

est contributions to the designs of the Auguste

readily embraced Moitte’s language of dry auster-

workshop consisted in the sophisticated orna-

ity. The similarity in drawing styles suggest the

mental bands that recall his mastery of sculpted

ways in which the goldsmith’s workshop absorbed

bas-​reliefs and printed vignettes. In contrast to

the sculptor’s rendering manner, like a snake swal-

three-​dimensional sculptures around which the

lowing its prey whole.

viewer can move, bas-​reliefs and vignettes require



a different set of visual strategies, particularly the

discerning eye and led the English connoisseur to

subtle modulation of light and cast shadows in

commission an extraordinary range of metalwork

order to build narrative tension and a sense of

from the French goldsmith, including the gold

The chiseled look of antiquity drew Beckford’s

Henry Auguste

51

Fig. 15 Henry Auguste, after a design by Jean-​Guillaume Moitte, pair of candelabra bearing the arms of the duke of York, 1788 or 1789. Silver gilt, 60.6 × 37.5 cm. Rogers Fund, 1921, 21.162.1a–c, .2. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Photo: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

ewer, while visiting Paris. Banished from England

was not alone in his admiration for Auguste’s

in 1784 because of a homosexual affair, Beckford

work. Other English buyers had a penchant for the

spent time on the Iberian Peninsula, where, in 1787

French goldsmith, such as Frederick, Duke of York,

while in Madrid, he encountered Auguste’s toilet

who commissioned a number of pieces, includ-

service for the Countess of Aranda. The work

ing a pair of candelabra marked with his coat

piqued his curiosity enough to lead Beckford to

of arms and his motto, Quo fas et Gloria ducunt

commission pieces directly from the goldsmith

(where right and glory lead) (fig. 15). Unlike the

while he was in Paris, buying twelve dessert plates

armorial candelabra, the gold ewer was a particu-

44

and a stand in 1788. The following year, he pur-

larly extravagant object that was probably never

chased four ewers.45 He reveled in Auguste and

meant to be used in any practical sense.48 That it

Moitte’s work and described it as “worthy of the

was crafted during a time of intense fiscal crisis in

best period of Grecian art.” It has even been sug-

France made it an especially prodigal work of art.

gested that one of Auguste’s creations was shown in



the painting of Beckford on his deathbed, indicat-

personal taste for English collectors, France’s adop-

ing the spiritual quality that exquisite craftsman-

tion of classical antiquity as the collective political

ship had for the English connoisseur. Beckford

language of revolution provided Moitte with the

46

47

52

Luxury After the terror

While the look of antiquity was a matter of

Fig. 16 Jean Baptiste Louis Massard (engraver) and Jean Baptiste Félix Massard (engraver), Premier frise de l’arc de triomphe elevé au Champ de Mars pour la Fédération du XIV juillet MDCCXC du coté de la Seine: présenté l’Assemblée nationale, 1790. Engraving, 19.5 × 70 cm. Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris. Photo: BnF.

opportunity to turn his sculptural talents to public

subsequently destroyed; small-​scale terracotta

monuments and festival architecture. The same

models are often the only remnants of grander

year the ewer was executed for Beckford, the sculp-

schemes for large bas-​reliefs that would edify

tor provided designs for the bas-​reliefs decorating

the public. This was the case with his destroyed

the arch of the 1790 Fête de la Fédération (which

decorations for the Fête de la Fédération, which

included the bas-​relief depicting his wife sacrific-

are preserved in the prints of Jean Baptiste Félix

ing her jewels that began this chapter). These were

Massard and his brother Jean Baptiste Louis, who

set into the two sides of the temporary wooden

showed the river-​facing side in an engraving that

triumphal arch built by Jacques Cellerier on the

included the National Guard, Louis XVI, and citi-

Champ de Mars to commemorate the one-​year

zens swearing an oath to an altar of the Fatherland,

anniversary of the fall of the Bastille and to mark

alongside allegorical figures of the law, as well as

the swearing of oaths by the new National Guard

Mercury—the same face shown on Auguste’s ewer,

to protect the nation. Circulated widely in prints,

but this time holding a liberty bonnet and a pike

Moitte’s reliefs and the triumphal arch they deco-

(fig. 16). On the side of the arch facing the Champ

rated participated in the paper propaganda used

de Mars, Moitte depicted “Aristocracy and its

to transform a temporary festival into a repeatedly

Agents being buried by the ruins of the Bastille” as

reproduced mythic vision of national unity, where

well as the arrival of Louis XVI and his family into

the monarchy, the military, and ordinary citizens

Paris to take up residence, an idealized portrayal

joined together as a single body taking an oath

of that event, which marked the beginning of

in perfect unison. Several of his bas-reliefs were

the royal family’s symbolic demise in chapter 1.

49

Henry Auguste

53

The section of the greatest interest is the homage

passed on June 14, 1791, prevented workers from

made to the second legislature, for it celebrates the

organizing and striking, suggesting that collec-

episode of Moitte’s own wife and her act of sacri-

tive action was the price to be paid for protecting

ficing her jewels to the nation. For all the heroic

individual ideas and forms of intellectual property.

messages advanced by Moitte’s neoclassical bas-​

Charge and discharge marks no longer guaranteed

reliefs, the sculptor’s work could also be seen as a

the Paris standard of gold and silver.53 In lieu of

commercial advertisement that transformed the

purity, goldsmiths like Auguste invested in mixing

festival’s architecture into a site of prime real estate

new alloys and undertaking conversions of one

for displaying Auguste’s unlikely forms of revolu-

form of metal into another. The absence of guild

tionary luxury. Amid the offerings by the women

restrictions encouraged experimentation with new

garbed in Roman tunics are ewers and vessels that

production methods for working metals.54

bear a strong resemblance to the objects being



designed by Moitte and executed by Auguste in his

abolition of the guild system. Among the most

shop at the Carrousel, where, beginning in 1792,

successful of Auguste’s cohorts was Martin-​

as one contemporary witness casually recounted,

Guillaume Biennais. Five years younger than

“executions generally took place.”51

Auguste, Biennais had started his career in 1788

50

Other goldsmiths took advantage of the

as a tabletier, a craftsman who specialized primarily in making games for the table: dominos, Liquidity/Liquidation

solitaire, trictrac, and bilboquet, which feature prominently on his professional trade card. Such

Extravagant as it is, the gold ewer for Beckford

trifles, executed from the modest materials of

represented one of a dwindling number of

wood, ivory, and paper, made Biennais a for-

commissions that Auguste oversaw during the

tune, to the extent that, by 1800, he was able to

Revolution. The emigration of elite patrons meant

sell pieces of mahogany furniture and became a

that goldsmiths not only lost the possibility of

specialist in nécessaires—traveling cases filled with

future commissions but also confronted bills

toiletries, tea sets, and other necessities (hence

that had not been settled, leading to widespread

the name)—and by 1801 or 1802, had deposited

debt, bankruptcy, and financial ruin. Moreover,

his official mark as a goldsmith.55 In contrast to

the mere association with royal and noble cli-

the commercial route of Biennais, the goldsmith

ents made goldsmiths particularly vulnerable to

Marc-​Etienne Janety became a member of the

political denunciations, as we saw in the case of

scientific community after discovering the process

Morris’s attempts to unload the silver of the comte

for making platinum malleable led him to collabo-

d’Angiviller. The Revolution also brought new

rate with revolutionaries seeking to establish new

freedoms for artisans. The passage of the d’Allarde

scientific standards.56 In Saint-​Domingue, both

52

54

law on March 2, 1791, officially abolished corpora-

André Rigaud and Alexandre Pétion, leaders of the

tions and guilds and, along with them, the system

Haitian Revolution, had trained as goldsmiths.57

of tax farmers, heavy duties, and regulations.



By contrast, the closely related Le Chapelier law,

one who entered the public fray over the national

Luxury After the terror

Out of these goldsmiths, Auguste was the only

paper currency. In 1790, he published a pamphlet titled Moyens de faciliter l’échange des assignats proposés au Comité des monnoies, or “Means of facilitating the exchange of assignats proposed at the Currency Court,” in which he still identified himself as Auguste orfèvre du roi.58 The debates on money attracted a number of unlikely contributors in print, such as the goldsmith, who published his text on September 27, 1790, just a few months after the first assignats, still featuring the portrait of King Louis XVI, in imitation of metallic specie, had been issued. When the National Assembly began issuing assignats at the end of December 1789, they circulated as provisional bonds, backed by or “assigned to” nationalized clerical lands that would be used to pay off the debt. They were not

Fig. 17 Augustin de Saint-​Aubin (engraver), Pierre Joseph Lorthior (engraver), assignat of 300 livres, April 16 and April 17, 1790. Engraving, 14 × 20 cm. GB 123, Musée Carnavalet, Paris. Photo: Paris Musées.

conceived as replacing wholesale the many different kinds of metallic currency, bonds, and bills of exchange that had made up the complex and territorially fractured financial system of ancien

saw a future of bankruptcy, ruin, and social disor-

régime France. The gravity of France’s shortage of

der. Regardless, the official law to issue the paper

metallic currency escalated, along with its mount-

currency was passed on April 17, 1790.

ing debts. It quickly became clear toward the end



of 1789 that the royal treasury was nearly empty.

workshops around the Imprimerie nationale,

As one commentator noted, even if everyone who

headed at the time by the royal printer Étienne-​

owned any plate contributed, it would still not

Alexandre-​Jacques Anisson-​Dupéron, whom

be enough to circulate enough metallic specie to

we will encounter again in the next chapter.61

resolve the national debt. In this context, Jacques

The portraits of the king on each assignat were

Necker, the Swiss banker and finance minister,

engraved by Augustin de Saint-​Aubin, whose soft

suggested in November 1789 the short-​term intro-

copper plates allowed only a few thousand print-

Initially, assignats were printed by diverse

duction of bills in limited circulation. From there,

ings before they became unusable (fig. 17). Rebecca

these temporary bonds quickly transformed into

Spang vividly described these early experiments in

forms of paper money, acquiring a value of what

the assignat as hybrids, chimerical monsters that

one finance committee member designated as

“combined the solidity of land with the liquidity

“hard cash” (espèces sonnantes). The prospect of

of circulating media; they were interest bearing

circulating paper money raised immediate anxiet-

and they were cash; they looked like coins but they

ies. Some deputies feared inflation, while others

looked also like bills of exchange.”62 The same fears

worried about deflation. Still more revolutionaries

of fraud that had plagued the goldsmiths of old

59

60

Henry Auguste

55

haunted the production of the assignats, which

however, as Auguste indicated, resided in the pro-

eventually had to spell it out on paper: rewards to

duction of small denomination coins necessary for

the denouncers, and death to counterfeiters.

minor transactions on the street or in the market.



The cost of making the coins often outweighed

The new fiscal policy was accompanied by

both anxieties about the future and memories

the actual worth of money that was “so worn and

of the past, particularly the earlier failures that

discolored it could pass for nail heads.”65 At a point

surrounded the attempts of John Law to intro-

when the paper assignats were still very much in

duce a paper currency during what escalated into

the air and the subject of intense public debate,

the fiscal crisis known as the Mississippi Bubble.

Auguste proposed converting recently requisi-

During the Regency, the Scottish banker had

tioned church bells taken from clerical property

begun issuing a form of paper currency backed by

into coins for common use. Criticizing what he

the French state and promises of riches found in

condemned as a “theory of assignats,” he wrote

Mississippi (hence the name) to finance his joint

that the problem with paper money was not only

stock company, only to see the “bubble” burst

the material’s fragility but also that the values

and the value of the company’s shares tumble, and

assigned to it tended to be so large and abstract

along with it, confidence in the crown’s fiscal poli-

that it could not actually be used in day-​to-​day

cies. According to Spang, the ghost of Law was

transactions for what he called “les petits détails de

on the minds of revolutionaries, who recalled the

commerce.” What was required instead was “real

dangers of speculation and of “paper money iniq-

cash (numéraire réel), adapted to the circumstances,

uitously substituted for coinage, an inconceivable

and which through its subdivision is given as pay-

delirium that can only be explained by a schem-

ment for the smallest of commodities.”66 France

ing and desperate Minister’s swindles; and in the

needed to touch its money in the form of “palpable

end, a scandalous and grievous bankruptcy.”

currency,” what he described as “une monnoie sans

63

56

64

Though speculation, corruption, and the worth-

abstraction” that “carries its mortgage (hypothèque)

less nature of paper have tended to function as

in itself and which owes its deposit, value, and

the lasting associations with Law’s name, what is

guarantee to its material.”67 Instead of purchas-

often forgotten is the fact that the Scottish banker,

ing gold and silver bullion from abroad, at prices

speculator, and gambler was also the son of a

subject to fluctuations in the market, Auguste

goldsmith—which raises a host of more personal

proposed turning the abundance of copper found

questions about why he turned from gold to paper

in church bells into forms of small change that

as a primary means of securing his reputation.

would circulate with ease among the population.68



Given Auguste’s job as a metal refiner for the mint,

Auguste’s own currency proposal focused on

the issue of small change, which posed a significant

he probably wrote the pamphlet in the hope of win-

problem for those seeking to invest the new paper

ning the bid to produce the new coins himself after

money with an intrinsic value. Paper had not been

conducting chemical experiments in minting coins

a completely alien concept for those used to ancien

and medals in his workshop.

régime systems of commerce that depended on bills



of exchange and promissory notes. The problem,

how monetary policies became the collective

Luxury After the terror

The proposal provides a unique glimpse into

worry of artisans and economists alike and the

of the National Assembly attempted to reestablish

degree to which France’s national currency also

the marks system, saying that it was a matter of

became a subject of intellectual and material

taxation that adversely affected only the rich and

speculation. The sense of unease created by the

left the poor untouched, and that it “was less a

uncertain worth of paper is particularly pal-

tax and more of a form of security for the price

pable in the goldsmith’s text, a position that was

of gold and silver materials for which the govern-

understandable for an individual who was used

ment owes the same guarantee as that of money.”70

to handling money in terms of its precise weights,

Although a provisional system of marks was put

alloys, and measures, secure in the knowledge of

in place in September 1791, and Jean-​François

its heft. Arguing at length for why this church bell

Kalendrin retained his post as the head of the

money would promote equality, Auguste wrote:

Bureau de la régie until his departure sometime

“The volume of this money would pose invincible

in May 1792, the office was liquidated in October

barriers to hoarders. Four or five hundred francs in

1792, coincidentally the same month that Auguste

copper would become truly cumbersome; it would

presented his observations on the newly estab-

be impossible to secretly transport it. Avarice,

lished monetary commission’s decision to recast

distrust, or the desire to harm public safety would

coinage.71 An official system of marks or an admin-

prevent burying this money in the ground, where

istration in charge of it would not be restored until

one knows that a verdigris would immediately

the law of 19 Brumaire, year VI (November 9,

alter it.” Money appears in his treatise not so

1797).72

much as the tool of rational calculation, abstract



numbers, or debates about political economy but

to have shed his professional cloak and trans-

as a magical panacea for France’s money shortage,

formed into an alchemist of sorts, a mercurial

and a chemically alterable substance that degen­

figure ready to take advantage of the revolution-

erates when buried in the ground like some kind

ary upheavals and turn base materials into gold.73

of avenging fungus that punishes hoarders by

Setting up a chemical laboratory in his prosperous

emitting a poisonous verdigris.

workshop, he endeavored to explore other activi-



ties, such as engraving medals, a distinguished art

69

The goldsmith’s second and final publica-

After the second publication, Auguste seemed

tion on money, regarding the recasting of money,

form that would have been off-​limits to a gold-

dates to October 30, 1792, just after the September

smith within the strict divisions that had existed

Massacres signaled the official end of the mon-

between those professions governed by corpora-

archy and the start of the French Republic.

tions and those reserved for the Royal Academy.

One by one, the institutions of the monarchy

He was also alleged to have participated in the

fell, and along with them the standards that had

ransacking of churches after the suppression of the

guaranteed the quality of gold and silver work.

religious orders in September 1792, which called

In January 1791, the Cour des aides, the tax court

for the melting down of church silver to support

in charge of assaying precious metals and admin-

the war against Austria. Auguste was said to have

istering marks, was placed under seal, and it was

helped destroy the reliquaries of Sainte-​Chapelle in

officially abolished in March of that year. Members

1792 and stashed church relics at his country home

Henry Auguste

57

in L’Haÿ on the outskirts of Paris. Though there is

could be opened with a skeleton key. As Andrew

no definitive proof, he was probably involved in

Freeman notes, “there was little point in putting

the melting down of church silver, since he was

an expensive lock on the armoire. Once it was

named head of the refinery of the Paris and Lyon

discovered, the armoire was essentially useless. Its

mint in 1787, a post to which he was reelected

only raison d’être was its secrecy, and a ‘security

in both 1791 and 1797. In any case, he appears

lock’ would not protect it against a determined

to have courted controversy, as suggested by the

assailant.”77 The shroud of secrecy surrounding

paper trail of court cases that followed him in his

the armoire ultimately allowed it to function as a

role as the head of the refinery.

symbol of a corrupt monarchy, dependent upon



hidden machinations rather than political trans-

74

75

58

Though heading the Paris refinery at one time

would have enabled Auguste to wield exceptional

parency. In such a political context, figures like

power during the ancien régime, gold had been

Gamain, as the master of locked and sealed spaces,

eclipsed by the power of steel and paper, and

gained power as a symbolic figure who could pro-

the privilege of royal goldsmiths replaced by the

vide transparent access to the hidden secrets of the

terrifying powers of the locksmith during the

monarchy.78

Revolution.76 In 1792, the maître serrurier (master



locksmith) François Gamain had a star turn in

Louis XVI’s name had thus been liquidated as

the Armoire de Fer scandal, a crucial episode that

a sign of prestige and guarantor of value by the

revealed the secret collusion between the king

same individuals who had formerly purchased

and the politician Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, comte

the privilege to use his name. No longer styling

de Mirabeau. Gamain revealed the compartment

himself as the orfèvre du roi, Auguste continued to

that Louis XVI had had him build behind a wall

sell works from his shop at the Carrousel. In 1793,

of the Palais des Tuileries to hold his clandestine

he sold a gold tazza to Beckford, who remained in

correspondence with Mirabeau. The event helped

Paris during the first months of the Terror before

to seal the king’s fate, leading to his trial at the end

he was publicly denounced and forced to sneak

of the year. On November 20, 1792, Minister of the

out of the city dressed as a frumpy book clerk.79

Interior Jean-​Marie Roland discovered the cache of

Alongside the workshop at the Carrousel, Auguste

letters and documents in the safe, which Gamain

undertook experiments on coinage, developing

revealed after the storming of the Tuileries. The

methods to strike money from pure copper rather

shocking discovery was publicized in prints that

than making it from a molded alloy. He submitted

showed the once portly comte de Mirabeau (who

the results of his chemical research to a concours

had died in April 1791) appearing as the proverbial

monétaire held in year XI.80 As evidence of his

skeleton in the closet, holding a bag of money in

outsized ambitions, he also tried his hand at medal

one hand and the crown in the other to spell out

engraving. Doubts quickly surfaced about whether

Seen as untrustworthy and conspiratorial,

his collusion with the monarchy. There was noth-

he could claim any merits as a medal engraver,

ing complicated about the king’s safe in terms of

with one official remarking, “Citizen Auguste is

locks, and Gamain had done nothing more than

seen as nothing more than a merchant of gold-

fit a simple warded lock onto a wooden door that

smiths’ objects and engravings on metal; they say

Luxury After the terror

that the medals published by him were engraved by others.”81 The accusations certainly placed Auguste’s prior activities in perspective. In ancien régime France, it was not a crime to assume the style of another artist who worked within one’s workshop. During the Revolution, new intellectual property laws and a patenting system that replaced royal privileges made the usurpation of others’ work an affront to the new rights accorded to inventors.82

The mounting suspicions about Auguste’s

unsavory reputation during the Revolution led Moitte to distance himself from the goldsmith. In an unaddressed petition in the late summer of 1794, the sculptor portrayed himself as a victim of the period’s economic upheaval and sought to minimize his activities in the goldsmith’s work-

Fig. 18 Revolutionary period marks of Henry Auguste, ca. 1794. Photo courtesy of Toledo Museum of Art.

shop. He wrote that, contrary to what had been published, neither he nor his wife was rich. At the time, he had been paid 4,000 livres by Auguste to

the Napoleonic period. His skills found a natural

“give good taste to his workshop, where I was sum-

place amid a Directory Paris hungry once more

moned no more than once a week; the revolution

for gold and silver and the refined pleasures of

made me lose this advantage.” The sculptor was

life. Auguste appears to have been so confident

not the only one who sought to sever his ties to the

of his successes as a goldsmith after the Terror

past. After the Terror, Auguste changed his marks.

that he commissioned François Gérard to paint a

He replaced the regal crown and palm fronds

portrait of his family, which the artist displayed at

with a wolf ’s head and a boar’s head impaled by a

the Paris Salon of 1798. It has been argued that the

downturned spear, a mark that appeared as heads

Salon that year marked the decline of the radi-

were placed on pikes and paraded through the

cal politics of the Revolution and the rise of the

streets of Paris during the Terror (fig. 18).

private market dominated by petit-​maître sub-

83

jects, even as Gérard was still at work that year on completing a history painting depicting the events Gothic Romance

of August 10, which he had been commissioned to paint after winning a prize for his composition in

Auguste’s work has often been characterized in

1795.84 Ultimately abandoning the state-​sponsored

terms of the stylistic continuity of neoclassicism,

history project, Gérard began specializing instead

which persisted in French goldsmiths’ work before

in bourgeois portraits such as those of the Auguste

and after the fall of the ancien régime and well into

family. Known today through an oil sketch, the

Henry Auguste

59

conversation piece shows the goldsmith presid-

goldsmith Odiot, proudly seated before a table

ing over his family at a table on the porch of his

laden with large silver and gold vessels, the fruits

property at L’Haÿ near Bourg-​la-​Reine, at dusk

of his labor rather than his loins (plate 7). Instead,

(plate 6).85 Leaning into the light of the table,

he stands near the real focus of the painting: his

Auguste hovers above the head of his wife, who

wife, Madeleine-​Julie Coustou, wearing a shawl

is turned somewhat stiffly in profile. Seated at the

and seated at the table, quite oblivious to the gaze

table, she reads a book to her sons, Charles-​Louis

of the viewer. As the daughter of a prominent royal

Auguste and his younger brother, Jules-​Robert.

architect, Coustou brought financial security and

While the four faces are rendered more clearly

social connections to her husband’s household

in the skilled engraving of the painting by Pierre

when they married in 1782. And although the wife

Adam, the lamp casts an unusual penumbral light

of a goldsmith did not generally sign her husband’s

that obscures rather than reveals the sitter’s faces.86

work, a figure like Coustou would have undoubt-

Critics marveled at Gérard’s novel handling of

edly helped to run the workshop. According to

chiaroscuro lighting. As Charles Blanc noted, the

Auguste’s biographer, Charles Saunier, the arti-

lamp “barely grazes the second, only lights a part

san’s wife “was almost always an indispensable

of the father’s face and entirely casts in shadow the

collaborator. While the husband received the

head of the young mother, who nonetheless has

clientele, studied a project or worked the metal,

the central place in the composition, and upon

she balanced the books and looked over the cor-

whom the light, as well as the interest should be

respondence. She was the confidante and the

concentrated.”87 This unusual compositional effect

moderator. . . . She monitored the entrances and

has led to accusations of Gérard’s weaknesses as a

exits, fixed the rates, and avoided risky schemes.”89

painter, namely his lack of concern in conjuring

What critics of Gérard’s painting rarely mention is

the psychological depth of his sitters in favor of

that Coustou had died in 1795, several years before

fussing over the material details and trappings of

the portrait was displayed at the 1798 Salon.90 This

their social position. For Xavier Salmon at least,

might explain the painter’s decision to depict her

the Auguste family portrait exemplifies Gérard at

as a ghostly, melancholic figure, rather than a

his most superficial, where “one could perceive the

maternal presence made of flesh and blood.

unpleasant tendency of preferring a piquant effect



to the unity of the ensemble, of drawing attention

began to feel the weight of all his debts, but one

to certain aspects of mediocre interest to the detri-

could surmise that the death of his wife had an

ment of the actual subject.”

adverse effect on his workshop, not to mention



his familial bonds. The inventory drawn up after

88

60

When the portrait is seen solely in terms of

It is hard to know exactly when Auguste

Gérard’s painterly touch, it may indeed appear

her death, on 7 Pluviôse, year IV (January 27,

lackluster. From the vantage point of the subject

1796), betrays little in the way of her personality.

matter’s life, the painting gains the air of mystery.

It does, however, enumerate Auguste’s heteroclite

Auguste is not portrayed hard at work next to his

belongings, suggesting a mercurial man with many

tools or alongside the products of his trade, as,

scattered interests, easily led astray into pursuits

years later, Robert Lefèvre would show the rival

other than his day job. Listed are agates, crystals,

Luxury After the terror

corals, and other mineral and rock specimens;

The ring at the top and the shape suggest that the

while these were possibly part of his tools of

reliquary was meant to be hung like a large locket.

the trade, they were supplemented by scientific



instruments such as Leyden jars; a copper électro-

paraded around during the Terror, particularly

phore (a machine used to generate an electrostatic

that of the radical journalist Jean-​Paul Marat. After

charge); a pneumatic pump such as those used in

his assassination at the hands of the Girondin

scientific experiments on air; a telescope; and a

Charlotte Corday on July 13, 1793, his funeral

microscope by Delbarre “en mauvais état.”91 This

became a festival. While his body was interred

scientific debris indicates the range of Auguste’s

in the garden of the Cordeliers Club, where he

activities, depicting a man who kept abreast of

had once held court, his heart was suspended in

enlightened learning and who eagerly pursued

an urn inside the middle of the former convent

the scientific fads of the period, perhaps only to

turned radical meeting hall.95 At the same time,

abandon experiments once his instruments had

counterrevolutionaries in the Vendée adopted

broken. Alternatively, the inventory conjures the

the sacred heart of Jesus as a symbol of royalist

92

Better-​known hearts than Coustou’s had been

somewhat manic image of a mad scientist’s labora-

sympathies, a political view perhaps obliquely

tory more than the fastidious site of a trustworthy

expressed in Pierre Haly’s haunting glass sculp-

goldsmith’s workshop, delineating a man who

ture of Marie-​Antoinette walking through a

perhaps had more in common with the alchemical

ruined landscape carrying the sacrificed heart of

experimenters of the early modern period cooking

the aristocracy (fig. 19).96 Few would have seen

homunculi than those of a bourgeois gentleman

Coustou’s heart, because it lay hidden and buried

capable of dutifully balancing his books.

under the pavement of the choir of the parish



church of Saint-​Léonard until 1972, when reno-

93

Coustou’s posthumous face cloaked in shadow

while reading to her pensive children in the pre-

vation works unearthed the reliquary. After the

ternatural light of the lamp acquires an eerie poi-

Ministry of Culture officially classified the heart

gnancy when viewed alongside the gilded copper

as a monument historique on March 29, 1977,

heart reliquary made, in all likelihood, by her

it was transferred to the department archives of

grieving husband (plate 8). Located in a box kept

Val-​de-​Marne, where it rests as a strangely three-​

today at the archives of the Val-​de-​Marne in L’Haÿ-​

dimensional object stuffed amid the dusty paper

les-​Roses, the heart is made of gilded brass. The

documents and correspondence of the quiet

heart is heavy. Weighing several pounds, it is filled

archive (today engulfed by an enormous suburban

with lead, though it is unclear when it may have

centre commercial).

replaced the remains of Coustou.94 If Auguste him-



self raised the heart (which seems likely), it can

your beloved? Even in a sentimental age—when

hardly count among the most sophisticated of his

readers’ hearts brimmed over with the words of

works. File marks and the unsmoothed blows of

Rousseau’s romance novels, billets doux filled

the hammer are visible on the puffy, curved sur-

paintings and prints, and eye-​shaped miniatures

faces of each ventricle. Two crudely made hinges

made for lovers’ gazes were secreted into pockets

seal the halves of the organ-​shaped vessel shut.

and hands—secular, heart-​shaped reliquaries for

What do you do with the material remains of

Henry Auguste

61

Fig. 19 Pierre Haly, Marie-​Antoinette Sacrifices the Heart of the Nobility on the Altar of the French Republic, ca. 1790, or possibly 1793. Lampworked glass, 22.5 × 28.2 × 21.2 cm. 2003.3.35, Collection of the Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, New York. Photo: Corning Museum of Glass.

62

dead wives were rare. In the past, such forms had

left behind. The civil registers of L’Häy-​les-​Roses

typically been made to contain the body parts of

mentioned the transfer of her remains to the

saints and clergy, or royalty, such as the sixteenth-​

church of Saint-​Léonard on 27 Frimaire, year IV

century heart-​shaped reliquary made for Anne of

(December 18, 1795), followed by a section of text

Brittany and venerated by faithful pilgrims and

struck out of the registers describing the wishes

royal subjects.97 Retaining their religious and royal

of the family “that the said deceased should be

associations, reliquaries were rare in the context of

inhumed in the chapel of ______, situated to the

revolutionary France. Coustou’s heart-​shaped box

right of the choir in the church of l’Häy.”98 Tellingly,

was clearly intended as a personal memento for

there is no mention of God or Christian spiritual-

her close friends and family. The message writ-

ity on this heart-​shaped memento mori. Instead,

ten on the bicuspid surface spells out the familial

we see the genealogical knots that bound her to

relationships that the once-​living Madeleine-​Julie

the family: as daughter, niece, granddaughter,

Luxury After the terror

wife, and mother: “Here is the heart of Madeleine

one is reminded of an older classical economy of

Julie, deceased in 1795, daughter of Charles-​

writing epitaphs. Anne Carson called the ancient

Pierre Coustou, architect to the King, died in

Greek poet Simonides of Keos’s exacting and

1797, niece of Guillaume + 1778, granddaughter

calculating care with words an “economy of the

of another Guillaume + 1746 and granddaugh-

unlost,” a skill that was physically marked by his

ter of Nicolas + 1733, all celebrated sculptors who

work as a composer of epitaphs. Chiseling his

rendered the name Coustou illustrious; she mar-

poetry on headstones, Simonides (the same poet

ried in 1782 Henri Auguste, goldsmith to the King

who miraculously escaped an ill-​fated banquet that

and was the mother of Charles-​Louis and Jules-​

gave birth to the use of memory palaces) charged

Robert, whom she left behind at a young age. May

his clients per word.100 This material economizing

her children one day reap the inheritance of such

forced the poet to “measure his inspiration against

talents and virtue.” The chiseled epitaph is both

the size of his writing surface. Out of this mate-

an incredibly moving and macabre tribute and an

rial fact—which is also an economic fact because

archival record providing clues to the complexi-

stones and stonecutting cost money—evolved an

ties of Auguste’s relationship to his in-​laws and

aesthetic of exactitude.”101 Auguste was no poet.

his children. Promising a familial inheritance

As head of the mint and a cost-​calculating maker

shaped by generations of artists and artisans to the

of things, he was, however, always mindful of just

deceased Madeleine-​Julie’s children, the reliquary

how much gold would have to be expended in

is also a political document of the fierce refusal to

order to coat the surface of his wife’s brass heart-​

sacrifice the goldsmith’s family—or even the royal

shaped box, an object for which he would receive

associations of its lineage—to the patriotic fervor

no recompense save for the promise of an inheri-

of the state.

tance to be collected by his children.



99

Lacking the polish of a piece like the gold



Casting a gloomy shadow over the work of a

ewer, the heart’s text provides a rare glimpse of the

nominally neoclassical artisan, the heart reliquary

private forms of mourning that took place in the

can be situated in the broader cultural moment of

immediate postrevolutionary period. The elegant

gothic Thermidor, where anecdotal recollections

cursive script fades into a series of hastily chis-

of the bals des victimes—dances that admitted

eled marks, with the lines of the compass used to

only those whose relatives had been guillotined

discipline the lettering into rows still visible on

during the Terror—and fantastic tales of the dead

the surface. The sizes of the letters are uneven,

coming back to life allowed the French collective

large and proud at the top and smaller toward the

imagination to work through the traumas of the

tapered bottom of the reliquary, as if the inheri-

recent past by means of a “guillotine romanti-

tance of talent and virtue has diminished, leaving

cism.”102 Coustou’s heart reliquary gains added

little in the way of rewards for Auguste’s sons to

significance when considered in light of the mass

reap. Certain words carry calligraphic flourishes,

graves and disorganized burial practices during

with coeur finished off by a curlicue reminiscent

the Revolution, which included the unceremoni-

of the ewer’s frivolous wooden handle. Parsing

ous interment of Louis XVI and Marie-​Antoinette,

the text on the limited space of the metallic heart,

whose remains were never found (although

Henry Auguste

63

speculation on their whereabouts persists to this

orientalist fantasy novel Vathek.107 On a broader

day).103 From the posthumous family portrait

level, the language of gothic literature with

to the heart reliquary, the evidence of Auguste’s

which Beckford experimented channeled collec-

earnest, uxorious expressions of love for his dead

tive European anxieties about love and posses-

wife do not settle neatly within the narratives of

sion, with the specter of colonialism and human

postrevolutionary material culture, just as histo-

property never far from stories of the super-

rians never quite know what to do with Georges

natural (particularly for someone like Beckford,

Danton’s intense mourning after the death of his

whose family had amassed its wealth through

first wife, Gabrielle Danton, alongside the many

Jamaican sugar plantations), where, according to

acts of radicalism that made him such a tower-

Joan Dayan, “Fictions of sentiment and idealiza-

ing public figure of the Paris Commune and the

tions of love are linked in unsettling ways to the

Cordeliers Club before his execution on April 5,

social realities of property and possession.”108

1794. Discovering that Gabrielle had died while

Together, the heart reliquary and the Morpheus

he was on campaign in Belgium, Danton went

box represent two gothic aberrations amid the

straight to her grave after his return to Paris and

more typical lineup of Auguste’s goldsmith work,

dug up her body to hold her one last time, before

demonstrating the ways in which a strict neoclas-

commissioning the deaf-​mute sculptor Claude-​

sicism could be diverted from narratives of public

André Deseine to create a bust of his dead wife

virtue and patriotism to encompass the personal,

on the spot (and promptly remarrying Louise

the perverse, the hermetic, and the melancholic.

Sébastienne Gély).104

Coustou’s heart in particular functions as an abject



container, mourning undoing the mastery that

Of course, funereal motifs were part and

parcel of the neoclassical repertoire. In fact,

Auguste, as the former orfèvre du roi, should have

Auguste himself had brandished deathly themes

shown in the execution of any piece shaped by his

for commercial gain, such as the casket that he

own hands.

made once again on behalf of Beckford (plate 9).

105

Known as the Morpheus box, Auguste made the silver-​gilt casket either during the period of 1793

Gilded Futures

to 1798 (based on the marks) or as late as 1804 and

64

decorated it on the side with chiseled moths and

The gilded splendor of the Empire marked both

extinguished torches, motifs taken from classical

the zenith and the nadir of Auguste’s career,

Roman funerary tombs. The top contains a cast

which appeared to have been regenerated under

recumbent figure who is sleepy but not quite dead,

the reign of Napoleon and an imperial court that

suggesting that he may represent Morpheus, the

incorporated an increasingly lavish set of ceremo-

ancient god of slumber and dreams who did not

nies, costumes, and social orders. Requiring new

typically figure among the cast of antique deities

trappings of authority and despising anything

used in decorative arts motifs.106 The enigmatic

that smacked of either the ancien régime or the

themes and function of the casket befit the quirky

Revolution, Napoleon made goldsmiths once more

imagination of the author of the early gothic and

in demand. His cultural advisor Vivant Denon had

Luxury After the terror

medieval relics planted in the ground and “discov-

the French monarchy of the ancien régime and the

ered” as signs of providence auguring the success

newly self-​crowned emperor, perhaps serving

of Napoleon’s military expeditions; he commis-

as a harbinger of Napoleon’s eventual decision

sioned Biennais to create the imperial scepter

to divorce Joséphine and wed Marie-​Louise, the

for the coronation based on the example made for

grandniece of Marie-​Antoinette, thereby marry-

Charlemagne and asked the furniture maker

ing into the Habsburg dynasty.110 Unsurprisingly,

Georges Jacob to construct an entirely new throne.

Charles X had most of the imperial grand vermeil

The imperial retinue’s appetite for tea sets, table-

melted down in order to fashion a new service

ware, nécessaires, and toiletry sets fashioned from

during the Bourbon Restoration.111

gilded silver kept Biennais busy and required the



services of goldsmiths who had been active during

not enough to secure a goldsmith’s reputation after

the ancien régime, such as Odiot and Auguste.

the end of the guilds, and Auguste felt compelled

While the crowned heads of Europe repudiated the

to display his works at the Exposition des produits

false majesty of the Napoleonic court, the formerly

de l’industrie française, an exhibition venue that

enslaved Black and mulatto generals in Haiti

emerged in the postrevolutionary period as luxury

watched closely and imitated the gilded figure of

makers sought to obtain public acclaim on the

authority they overthrew in the former colony

same level as fine artists. First established in 1798,

of Saint-​Domingue, the same year that he crowned

the annual exhibitions provided artisans with

himself emperor of the French, cognizant of the

publicity for their works. In turn, the Napoleonic

fact that gold served as the omnipresent symbol of

regime used the displays to promote the indus-

the new empire.

trial arts, which were deployed as ideological and



As the former orfèvre du roi, Auguste eagerly

The imperial commissions were apparently

economic propaganda aimed at other competing

supplied designs for the new imperial court.

nations. The considerable government support for

Such official works represented a far cry from

artisans signaled the elevated status of the deco-

his more unusual pieces for Beckford. The papal

rative arts at the same time that the fairs, which

tiara for Pius VII that he made with the jeweler

encouraged consumption on the part of visitors,

Marie-​Étienne Nitot was offered by Napoleon and

replaced the more volatile participatory festivals

Josephine for the pope’s services at the emperor’s

of the Revolution.112 Foreigners were impressed,

coronation in 1804. That same year, he cre-

with one English spectator at the 1801 event struck

ated the grand vermeil, a lavish silver-​gilt service

by the wealth of materials on display: “the finest

that included an enormous and hefty pot à oille

silks, the most beautiful tapestry, porcelain, lace,

and a matching stand supported by winged lions

cambrics, furniture of every kind, and of new

(fig. 20). The 425-piece service required so much

inventions, works in steel, glass, marble, every

gold and silver that the goldsmith had to incorpo-

thing which an ingenious and flourishing people

rate old tableware that had been started in 1789 on

could send to Paris, from every quarter, were

behalf of Louis XVI. While Napoleon demanded

here exhibited.”113 Participating at the final exposi-

that everything be newly made on his behalf, the

tion held during the Empire at the Esplanade des

service represented a material continuity between

Invalides in 1806, Auguste displayed his vessels

109

Henry Auguste

65

Fig. 20 Henry Auguste, oval tureen (pot à oille) and stand from the grand vermeil de l’empereur, 1789/1804. Silver gilt, 51 × 53.4 cm. Collection du Musée Napoléon Ier, GMLC327C. Photo © RMN– Grand Palais / Art Resource, New York (Thierry Ollivier).

alongside other exhibitors, with gold only one

polished surfaces, suggests that Auguste sought

shiny medium that competed for the attention

to distinguish himself from the competition,

of visitors. He won (ironically enough) a gold

which included Napoleon’s favored goldsmith,

medal for his entries at the 1806 exposition, which

Biennais. One art historian later judged his process

included two repoussé busts, a chalice, and two

as “cheapening” traditional goldsmiths’ work by

enormous candelabra that Napoleon hoped to

relying on cold joining methods: “Figures and bas-​

offer to the once-​again operational church of Saint-​

reliefs applied in a cold manner using vises and

Denis, and a round table made for Count Nicolas

nuts do not appear joined to the body of the object,

Demidoff. He received recognition for inventing

and as if they were in a different material: it is more

114

a process of hammering and stamping metals that

the work of a bronzier [bronze worker] than a gold-

would eliminate the need for casting and chas-

smith.”116 Regardless, the “cheap” technique did not

ing, along with reducing the amount of material

discourage buyers. By 1807, Auguste had one of the

used. The introduction of another technique,

largest workshops in Paris, which employed sixty

where matte ornaments were positioned against

workers, even more than Odiot, demonstrating the

115

66

Luxury After the terror

ways in which the progress of industry had trans-

object made out of pure gold. Typically incorporat-

formed workshops that specialized in singular and

ing ebony or ebonized wood handles to prevent

rare objets de luxe into proto-​modern factories.

the heat conducted by the metal from burning the



hand of the user, the unsteady grip here appears

117

Accolades and prestige aside, Auguste’s fame

could not guarantee his financial security in a

as a fragile element that at one point was mis-

world of radical economic flux. He ultimately

handled and broken at its weakest point (and later

became a victim of his mounting debts, as the

repaired). From a purely formal viewpoint, it calls

family became aware of his financial insolvency.

to mind the extravagant snakes that hypnotized

His own father subpoenaed him in 1798 in order

Renaissance artists upon the rediscovery of the

to receive payment from the sale of his property

sculpture of Laocoön on January 14, 1506, near

118

in Val-​sous-​Meudon. After his wife’s death, his

San Pietro in Vincoli in Rome. Described by the

father-​in-​law, Charles-​Pierre Coustou, became

ancient Roman writer Pliny as mirabiles, or mar-

the guardian of his young grandsons, undertak-

velous, the snakes encircling the bodies of the

ing measures to secure their inheritance at L’Haÿ.

priest Laocoön and his two sons became a sculp-

His reputation en famille was not the only thing in

tural obsession for those seeking to outdo this

tatters. Even as Beckford acknowledged the gold-

writhing masterpiece. As Madeleine Viljoen writes,

smith’s talents, he became aware that entering into

the Laocoön “distilled Renaissance preoccupa-

financial transactions with the French goldsmith

tion with the serpentine line in a single, snake-​

was not without its risks. The English connoisseur’s

wreathed form, one that had the sanction of the

agent in France, Nicholas William, believed that

ancients,” thus coiling around the minds of sculp-

Auguste had denounced him to the authorities in

tors preoccupied with disentangling their own

Paris, writing that “A greater rogue than Auguste I

talents from the monumental presence of antiq-

believe is not upon the face of the earth, he will

uity.122 The shapely handle provides an unlikely

119

cheat you of everything if he can, and nothing but

site for displaying a design ingenuity that promises

force, I see, will bring him to any sort of reason.”

to outdo the orderly designs of the ornamental

Beckford cautioned William to be careful in col-

bands of the ewer, transforming the vessel’s sharp

lecting his debts from the goldsmith, deeming him

outlines into a twirling surplus of associations,

“a slippery eel.”121

a neoclassical ideal come undone.





120

Financial insolvency destabilizes the readings

Did bankruptcy make Auguste a modern

of Auguste’s work, lending an unreliable qual-

man? To a degree, there are parallels between

ity to disparate elements of his vessels, no matter

Auguste’s insolvency and the gilded splendor pro-

their material purity, perhaps calling to mind

jected by the Napoleonic regime, which seemed to

the expression “all that glitters is not gold.” The

rely increasingly on golden veneers as its military

serpentine handle of the ewer joined to the body

campaigns became more disastrous. By 1806, the

of the vessel by a Medusa-​like face could be seen as

year he was hauled to court by his creditors, his

registering the slippery nature of Auguste’s work

debts were estimated at 1,369,968 francs. Even

as a goldsmith, evidence of an artisanal guile in

before the court date, Auguste had attempted to

choosing to attach an ungraspable handle to an

run away, only to return and seek to restructure

Henry Auguste

67

his debts, promising to pay the entire sum back

1810.129 Condemned in absentia to be shackled and

in eight years.123 His creditors included gilders,

chained for six years in 1811, Auguste managed

chandelier makers, lemonade sellers, his own

to hang on for another five years; he had escaped

brother-​in-​law, widows, laundrywomen, architects,

France with three crates holding the most valuable

and housepainters, as well as Count Demidoff.

cargo, “silver, diamonds, and bills of exchange.”130

Instead of making good on his promises to faith-

Though it is unclear when he left Jamaica, Auguste

fully pay back his debts, Auguste secretly planned

died on September 7, 1816, in Port-​au-​Prince, Haiti.

a second escape. Quietly relinquishing control of



his business, he placed one of his employees in

Auguste of Haiti does not resemble the man who

charge of business operations in 1808 and orga-

had once made his mark crafting visible and

nized the sale of paintings and furnishings at an

expensive forms of luxury. Following his depar-

auction in August 1809, demonstrating the more

ture, the government accused his sons of having

personal ways in which individuals could use

colluded with their father, forcing them to bear

auctions to dismantle one’s own life possessions in

the weight of his debt. After auctioning off the

order to regenerate cash flows. The next month,

remaining ninety-​four crates seized at Dieppe,

he gave powers of attorney to a business associ-

creditors were able to recuperate only 38,236 francs

ate, saying that he was “about to embark on a long

from the sale. The government sought to mort-

voyage of which he could not say how long.” This

gage the family properties, even as the guardian

may have been Charles Dietz, a former surgeon,

of Auguste’s sons attempted to save his young

later accused of being an accomplice in “diverting

charges and the little he could from their father’s

his effects, or in accepting false transports, sales,

financial shipwreck.131 But the damage to the fam-

or donations, or in subscribing to acts that were

ily name had been done. The scars were so deep

124

125

126

knowingly fraudulent to legitimate creditors.”

that when Charles-​Louis, the older son pictured

In the fall of 1809, the goldsmith left Paris for

sitting pensively at the table next to his mother in

London en route to Jamaica, but not before enlist-

the painting by Gérard, purchased the du Plessis

ing his workers to pack up the precious objects

farm in 1817, he changed his name to Charles-​Louis

and jewels in his workshop, as well as his tools and

Auguste Duplessis after his property, in the hope,

other belongings, to be sent to a fake address in

according to Saunier, of ridding the future from

Dieppe, where an intermediary was to send the

“the stain that marked his name.”132 His father had

packages onward to England.128 From September 23

managed to wipe out all the tentative hopes for his

to October 13, 1809, the crates were sent in

sons’ futures that he had chiseled on the heart of

stages to Dieppe. Auguste failed to foresee the diffi-

his wife. One year later, on November 7, 1818, seek-

culty he would have in sneaking ninety-​four crates

ing to escape the debts that they could not repay,

out of France undetected, and the state seized his

both sons renounced their rights to inherit their

possessions at the French port; his creditors, how-

father’s estate.133

ever, were unsuccessful in their attempts to stop



his departure. The goldsmith was officially stripped

did Auguste envision for himself in Haiti? The

of his French citizenship in absentia on June 23,

punishment meted out by the French state to

127

68

Abstract, spectral, and speculative, the

Luxury After the terror

What sort of postrevolutionary future

the goldsmith who got away—condemning him

military conflicts among its warring generals,

in absentia to be shackled and chained—was a

a Black North, and the mulattos of the South and

paradoxically weighty and ponderous sentence

the West.138

for a former citizen who no longer had a bodily



presence in the French nation. At the age of fifty,

reorientation of the prior trajectory of his life by

Auguste abandoned his family and his debts in

mapping its end onto the turbulent and uncertain

order to embark on a great transatlantic jour-

promise of a postcolonial future in a histori-

ney without return, and without the promise of

cal terrain that Dayan has called the “quizzing

material security that ninety-​four crates of objects

glass” of colonial memory and its violent history:

would have provided against future monetary wor-

“Rereading events in France through the quizzing

ries. Escaping the metropole and its heavy burden

glass of Haiti is to clarify the reciprocal dependen-

of financial debts, Auguste perhaps sought the

cies, the uncanny resemblances that no ideology of

outer limits of France’s fiscal and administrative

difference can remove.”139 Likewise, the goldsmith’s

control by going to Haiti—a name chosen from

end in Port-​au-​Prince puts the eccentric practices

the Amerindian word for “mountainous lands” by

of his past into an alternative historical perspective

Jean-​Jacques Dessalines when he declared the first

by displacing them into a context where the colo-

independent Black republic on January 1, 1804,

nial language of mastery and domination of the

in Gonaives, shortly before he ordered the killing

Enlightenment encountered the powers of super-

of the remaining white French colonists on the

stition, resurrection, mutilation, and dispossession,

island.134 Two years later, Dessalines was mur-

harnessed in order to remake a different sort of

dered and violently dismembered in an ambush

history for the New World. The erratic elements of

by soldiers at Pont-​Rouge. Though we do not

Auguste’s life and work somehow gain new mean-

know the precise date of the goldsmith’s arrival,

ing when viewed in the context of Haiti. Whereas

Auguste probably traveled by boat from Jamaica to

one could read the heart relic of the goldsmith’s

Cap-​Français. His presence in Haiti is difficult to

wife in terms of the residues of Catholic ritual

trace amid the genealogical records, and he does

that secretly lingered on throughout the French

not appear to have been employed by the Hôtel de

Revolution, the eccentric form of luxury gains an

la Monnaie, which began issuing a new national

alternative significance when mapped onto the

currency shortly after independence, partially

voudou rituals that propelled key moments in the

135

The goldsmith’s demise in Haiti forces a

transformation of the colony of Saint-​Domingue

supplied, it turns out, by the British industrialist and experimental metallurgist Matthew Boulton.

into Haiti. For the radically dispossessed and

However, the family name Auguste was already

denigrated bodies of the enslaved, spiritual posses-

common in the north of Haiti at the beginning of

sion became the means to fuel colonial resistance.

the nineteenth century, raising the possibility that

Rather than viewing voudou as a practice merely

he may have had family contacts there before flee-

made up of superstitious beliefs derived from

ing France.137 Had Auguste arrived in the country

African cultures prior to enslavement, Dayan has

by 1810, he would have encountered a divided

characterized it as a diasporic practice intimately

Haiti that continued to be wracked by internecine

bound up with the violent historical realities

136

Henry Auguste

69

70

of colonial Saint-​Domingue. Functioning as an

auction in 1812, including the workshop drawings

“intensely intellectual puzzlement, the process

by Moitte, Odiot purchased them, and his rival

of thought working itself through terror,” Dayan

used the models over and over again in his own

describes the ways in which voudou reworked

successful workshop, which survives today. The

Haiti’s violent colonial past of slavery and dispos-

importance of the designs to Odiot’s reputation is

session, through active spiritual encounters and

made visible in the 1822 portrait of the goldsmith

rituals of memory, in “shreds of bodies come back,

by Robert Lefèvre, where the proper bourgeois

remembered in ritual, and seeking vengeance.”140

artisan is seated before his prized works. With his



elegant and unblemished right hand, Odiot points

If I appear here to be straying far afield

from Auguste’s goldsmithing work during the

to his finest works, while his sinister hand is shown

Revolution and the methodological parameters

firmly gripping the sheets of a large portfolio

of proper historical research, I do so in order to

containing the designs for the objects, claiming

point out that finding him in Haiti at the end

authority and ownership over their conception

of his life can be read as a form of poetic jus-

from start to finish. Perhaps this is the strangest

tice that, in some strange way, makes historical

twist of all in this tale of a good goldsmith gone

sense. Though Auguste may not have succeeded

bad, a slippery eel and insolvent experimenter

in having his church bell coinage turned into the

who tarnished the family name with his debts but

national French currency, the skills of an individ-

made some of the most beautiful works in precious

ual who possessed the power to convert ordinary

metal in the age of Terror. For it was ultimately

objects into the source of wealth surely must have

paper, the stuff that Auguste had railed against for

resonated in a place where relics had the ability to

being so fragile and abstract, the substance upon

resurrect the dead and change the course of the

which so many of revolutionary France’s past

future. Back in France, fragments of his memory

monetary worries and future dreams of national

lived on even after his death in Port-​au-​Prince in

prosperity were printed, that ensured the survival

1816, and after his sons had dispossessed them-

of his name, a little sliver of the slippery but gifted

selves of the tarnished family name. When his

eel’s work contained in each piece executed by his

seized possessions were sold off at a government

rival.

Luxury After the terror

P

laying cards was one of the few pastimes left to the royal family when they were imprisoned in the Temple beginning

on August 13, 1792, days after the storming of the Tuileries and the official end of the French monarchy. As the king’s valet de chambre Jean-​Baptiste Cléry recounted in his memoirs, the family typically partook in lighthearted games after dinner. The king and queen retired to her chamber to play

Chapter 3

another round of trictrac or piquet shortly before

Jean-​Démosthène Dugourc

bedtime.1 While games of chance had once evoked

Political Fantasies of the Arabesque

enjoyed by Marie-​Antoinette at her private retreat

the heady, high-​stakes world of elite gambling at the Petit Trianon, the games in their turreted residence afforded the royal family one of the final vestiges of bourgeois normalcy, a moment of temporal abandon otherwise constrained by the political events unfolding in Paris. Such moments did not last long. Soon after their imprisonment, the National Convention initiated the trial of the king. On Christmas of 1792, Louis XVI wrote his last testament and will. After a short and contentious trial for treason, where Maximilien Robespierre and Louis Antoine de Saint-​Just demanded the death of the king on behalf of despots everywhere, declaring that “no one can reign innocently,” Louis Capet was dealt a losing hand. On January 16, 1793, 361 deputies voted for the king’s immediate death, 72 for a delayed death penalty, and 288 against his death.2

Less than a month after his execution at

the Place de la Révolution on the morning of January 21, 1793, a novel set of playing cards appeared, which incorporated the new realities of a France freed of its monarchical past. Kings and queens were replaced with a new cast of revolutionary characters, including figures of Liberty and Equality (plate 10). A harbinger of the National Convention’s decision on 1 Brumaire, year II

(October 22, 1793) to remove royal and feudal signs

for lavish furnishings, sumptuous silks, and inte-

from playing cards, the first set of republican cards

riors that filled the great ancien régime residences

was patented by Jean-​Démosthène Dugourc and

of elite Paris and the French court, including the

Urbain Jaume. The inventors insisted to the public

very spaces where Marie-​Antoinette had once held

that the deck would function as “the Manual of the

gambling matches from dusk until dawn.

Revolution, since there is not a single attribute that



they compose that does not offer to the eyes or to

the Revolution is the subject of this chapter,

the spirit all of the characteristics of Liberty and

which explores the multiple and unexpected sites

Equality.” Proffering the cards as didactic if taste-

colonized by Dugourc’s arabesques. A pattern of

ful reminders of republican virtue, Dugourc and

ornament that saw a resurgence in France at the

Jaume explained in the prospectus that they had

end of the eighteenth century, arabesques provided

created them with the purpose of helping citizens

the means for Dugourc to make his name as a

to abandon “expressions that ceaselessly recall

designer, as he claimed to have invented the goût

despotism and inequality, and there is not a single

étrusque alongside his brother-​in-​law, the architect

man of taste who was not shocked by the gloomy

François-​Joseph Bélanger, shortly before the col-

figures on playing cards, and the insignificance of

lapse of the monarchy. A late eighteenth-​century

their names.” The egalitarian playing cards joined

iteration of neoclassicism informed more by

the plethora of games and other ephemeral forms

fantastical projection than archaeological accuracy,

of print that emerged during the Revolution that

the goût étrusque has been studied as a decorative

sought to draw a line between the corrupt diver-

language reserved for the European elite by schol-

sions of the ancien régime past and the didactic

ars such as Juan José Junquera, Christian Baulez,

mission of educating the citizens of the new

Chantal Gastinel-​Coural, and Pilar Benito Garcia,

nation. Far from innocuous pastimes, playing

who signaled Dugourc’s key role in disseminating

games, as Taws has argued, helped individuals

the style to courts in Spain, Russia, and Sweden.6

picture their place as participants in sweeping his-

In spite of the continuing proliferation of ara-

torical events over which they otherwise had little

besque designs throughout the Revolution—they

control or perspective, and to envision, as Dugourc

appeared on wallpaper designs, on textiles, and

and Jaume proposed, a world no longer governed

even upon the printed vignettes of the newly issued

by the authority of kings: “as images and objects

paper currency—a trend undoubtedly fueled by

that mobilized a participatory engagement with

Dugourc’s work as a designer, attention has focused

recent history, they articulated a transforma-

on his ancien régime activities, with the exception

tion of national and individual identities.”5 On a

of the revolutionary historian Jules Renouvier,

more personal level, the playing cards were an

who mistook Dugourc for a radical printmaker.

improbable private commercial enterprise for

At a moment when many of his collaborators and

Dugourc. For only a few years earlier, he had

former patrons were jailed or exiled, Dugourc

been responsible for creating the very language of

began a second career as a designer of paper

“despotism and inequality” critiqued in the 1793

ephemera, from letterheads and wallpaper to the

prospectus, as a designer of arabesque decorations

republican playing cards that opened this chapter.

3

4

72

Luxury After the terror

The ambiguous politics of design during



Ranging from engravings and silk designs

historical precedents beset by an anxiety of influ-

to wallpaper and playing cards, the objects and

ence, with innovators like Dugourc reweaving

images analyzed in this chapter reveal Dugourc’s

earlier motifs from classical antiquity and the

use of the arabesque both as an ornamental motif

Renaissance to new ends. Interpreting the republi-

with a classical precedent and as part of a political

can playing cards as forms of luxury that circu-

imaginary through which the designer willfully

lated arabesque compositions to new audiences

negotiated his place in the Revolution. Certainly,

and publics, I consider the ways in which these

his compositions could be seen as part of a con-

purported forms of propaganda often worked at

tinuing tradition of ornament prints that began

cross-​purposes with the moralizing discourses of

with the Renaissance rediscovery of antiquity and

the government. I do not mean to suggest that they

continued well after 1789. Severed from their appli-

were simply reactionary or even anti-​revolutionary

cation onto luxury surfaces such as silk uphol-

images. Instead, the cards pictured the ways in

stery, chandeliers, furniture, and elite interiors,

which the independent designer, freed from

arabesques opened up to a range of interpretations

the dictates of working for an administration or

and meanings no longer controlled by the author-

patron, could generate and claim authorship over

ity of the patrons who had commissioned them,

images that could not be controlled by a singu-

or even the luxurious materials out of which they

lar source of authority. This was the case when

had once been executed. Design flourished within

paper became a charged and visible medium for

a liberated atmosphere created by the new legal

determining the course of individual and collec-

frameworks of the Revolution, when, for the first

tive lives, from the printed passports and identity

time, intellectual property rights accorded design-

papers that allowed citizens to travel from one

ers considerable claims over their creative output.

locale to another to the legal documents that

As Katie Scott has argued, artists turned increas-

sealed the fate of suspects during the Terror.8

ingly to the legal courts to contest the encroach-



ment of the industrial arts upon the fine arts, since

ing a designer recognized for his singular genius

painters, sculptors, and engravers were “stripped of

and talent, Dugourc’s arabesques also activated

their elite corporate identity” and forced to “obtain

the anxious collective myths of the feminine that

an occupation license, called patente, in common

haunted revolutionaries as they sought to establish

with the vast body of urban artisanal trades from

a political society based on masculine notions of

whom they had formerly been distinguished by

virtue. As a royal designer he worked on behalf

their exemptions and privileges, and with whom

of the queen, whose lavish spending on luxury

they were now equated as citizens.”7 With his deci-

and fashion in the final years of the ancien régime

sion to patent the republican playing cards in 1793,

was viewed by critics as a sign of the corruption

Dugourc clearly sought to take advantage of the

of the court and its fiscal crisis, particularly in the

new legal rights accorded to designers.

wake of the Diamond Necklace Affair. Even as he



retailored his work and identity toward the new

Collective fantasies and individual conflicts

Beyond the personal fantasies of becom-

competed with each other within ornamental

publics and forms of production that emerged in

designs that by their very nature operated through

Paris after the collapse of the monarchy, what I

Jean-Démosthène Dugourc

73

describe as a maternal economy haunted his use

follies, and residences with luxurious furnish-

of arabesques, where past memories of the queen

ings and inventive decorations inspired by the

became entangled with more personal narra-

mania for antiquity.11 In trendy neighborhoods

tives about missing mothers. Finally, this chapter

such as the Chaussée d’Antin, arabesque decora-

asks: do designers make unreliable narrators?

tions snaked through nearly all of the buildings

Here, Ben Kafka’s notion of the “psychic life” of

constructed in the city’s great real estate boom that

paperwork provides a productive way of thinking

took place from the end of the Seven Years’ War in

through Dugourc’s shift to paper designs during

1763 to 1789. Such architectural chimeras appeared

the Revolution. Paperwork laid the foundations

to teeter near the brink of financial disaster; the

of a modern bureaucratic government, made

cultural critic Louis Sébastien Mercier described

possible through the machinery of “registers,

enormous buildings emerging “from the earth,

receipts, reports, instructions, circulars, signa-

as if by enchantment, and new neighborhoods

tures, countersignatures, seals, and other forms

are composed of nothing more than hôtels of the

of official communication” that would replace

greatest magnificence.”12 In marrying the sister

old documents made under the sign of feudalism

of the famed architect Bélanger in 1776, Dugourc

and despotism.9 Kafka reminds us that the official

gained access to the charmed world of his brother-​

documents of governance were also shaped by

in-​law, contributing to the prestigious architectural

human slips and errors, forms of parapraxis that

projects he undertook on behalf of the financier

made paper prone to “inevitably reactivate some

Claude Baudard de Saint-​James and court banker

of our earliest wishes, conflicts, and fantasies

Jean-​Joseph de Laborde, whom Dugourc described

about maternal provision, paternal authority,

as “the two richest individuals in France.”13 Neither

sibling rivalry, or whichever other familial division

the language of arabesques nor speculation

of labor happened to be in place in our child-

were the reserve of Parisian financiers alone. Much

hoods.”10 While some readers may bristle at the

of the designer’s work with Bélanger also catered

use of Freudian psychoanalysis to interpret drawn

to the whimsical tastes of the court, emblematized

designs, the notion of “psychic life” may provide a

foremost in the designs for Bagatelle, the pleasure

different framework for contemplating design as

pavilion made for the comte d’Artois, the king’s

an interface between individual intentionality and

younger brother (fig. 21). He had commissioned

collective forms of cultural, political, and eco-

the pleasure pavilion in 1777 after his sister-​in-​law,

nomic change.

Marie-​Antoinette, had wagered that it could not be completed in less than three months. While Bélanger directed the project, the sculptor Nicolas-​

Speculative Origins

François-​Daniel Lhuillier provided the decorative program for the pavilion, since he had traveled to

74

On the eve of the Revolution, as the court at

Rome and had first-​hand knowledge of the monu-

Versailles and the city of Paris vied for cultural

ments there; he brought back to Paris a love of

influence, plenty of opportunities appeared for

Palladio and a copy of Piranesi’s Diverse Maniere,

ambitious young designers to fill lavish gardens,

which he shared with the architect.14 The mémoire

Luxury After the terror

Fig. 21 Jean-​Démosthène Dugourc, The Garden Façade of Bagatelle, 1779. Pen and black ink and watercolor over black chalk, 28.3 × 40.2 cm. Bequest of Susan Dwight Bliss, 1966, 67.55.17. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Photo: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

that Dugourc filed concerning his work confirms

incorporation of figures into his arabesque decora-

his marginal role at Bagatelle, which consisted

tions set him apart from the aesthetic of a younger

mainly of paintings on stucco ornament that

generation trained at the École royale gratuite

imitated alabaster bas-​reliefs; his role was dimin-

de dessin, who had internalized a pedagogical

ished because of his lack of authority regarding

prohibition against depicting the human figure,

classical sources. Thus, he merely, in the words

a privilege reserved for students of the Royal

of Baulez, “filled in the voids left behind in the

Academy.17 Dugourc developed his own signature

arabesques designed by Nicolas-​François-​Daniel

draftsmanship and design techniques in a high-​

Lhuillier and the painter-​decorators who were not

pressure architectural environment surrounded by

specialists of the figure.” Nonetheless, Dugourc’s

a network of skilled artists and artisans responsible

15

16

Jean-Démosthène Dugourc

75

for executing the interior. His dexterity as a drafts-

with which he has ceaselessly remained occu-

man enabled him to execute the architectural

pied.”21 Upon his return to Paris, he found that

commands of Bélanger when needed, but it also

the family’s wealth had evaporated, and the young

granted him the freedom to create drawings with

aspiring artist, after receiving a pension alimen-

signature flourishes when he wished to highlight

taire (to cover food and lodging expenses) from

his own name.

the duc d’Orléans, chose to emancipate himself



from his father.22 He decided, “amateur that he

18

From an early age, Dugourc was familiar with

the world of ancien régime privilege and pleasures,

was, to become an artist.”23 His choice here of the

having witnessed it firsthand while growing up

words “amateur” and “artist” are telling of a high

in the household of the Palais-​Royal, the grand

self-​regard.

Parisian residence of the notoriously debauched



duc d’Orléans. Born on September 23, 1749, in

his father’s financial misadventures as a determin-

Versailles to Jean-​François Dugourc, an officer in

ing factor in the course of his subsequent career.

charge of provisions in the household of the duc

In 1751, his father had invested in newly invented

d’Orléans, and his wife, Charlotte-​Victoire Guairet

sanitation machines for cleaning and removing

Delacour, whose family had worked for the queen,

sewage from outhouses “without the odor from

he claimed to have received a princely education

the waste escaping or causing inconvenience of any

that led to aspirations far beyond his standing as

sort, even within the house where the waste will be

a minor figure in the duke’s retinue. He learned

processed.”24 Claiming that he was the “sole author

geometry, architecture, and perspective by the age

and inventor of the machine” as well as the lone

of ten and was sent to learn rhetoric at the collège

proprietor of the privilege over the rights to the

de Juilly, shortly before being called back to the

machine, Dugourc et compagnie obtained in 1763

Palais-​Royal, where he became a companion of the

exclusive rights to the invention from Louis XV

young duc de Chartres, who later became known

for twenty years. A barrage of lawsuits ensued in a

as Philippe Égalité. A turning point in his youth,

decades-​long case to which the lawyer Mathurin-​

according to his autobiography from 1800, was a

Pierre Jozeau devoted considerable paperwork.

trip to Rome, which ultimately for him became

The lawsuits are crucial for understanding

the site of fantasized projections rather than the

Dugourc’s own anxieties over the rights to inven-

focus of direct observation and careful study.

tion, since he was left with a huge legal mess: the

He had managed to reach the Eternal City at the

designer was forced to deal with debts owed and

age of fifteen in the entourage of a comte de Cani,

accrued several years after his father’s death in

only to be forced to return to Paris after three

1778.25 There are echoes of his father’s lawsuit in

months upon the death of his mother on April 13,

Dugourc’s own autobiographies written in 1800

1765: “he had only just arrived when the death

and 1823, which depict a self-​assured personality

of his mother forced him to return to France,

who, as Baulez noted, repeatedly insists on calling

having only glimpsed the famous city and seen

himself a “director” of projects rather than a minor

for just a moment the celebrated Winckelmann,

collaborator and who often sought to claim greater

whose enthusiasm inspired a taste for Antiquity,

authorship over collectively produced projects.

19

20

76

Luxury After the terror

In recounting his youth, Dugourc emphasized

As will become evident, the paternal anxieties over

marriage scenes, and gouache portraits, as well as

privilege and inventions would resurface in his

small compositions that featured obscure his-

own desire to establish an exclusive patent over the

torical subjects—such as Le souper de Henri IV à

republican playing cards.

Coutras (1775) and L’hommage rendu au maréchal



de Catinat après la Victoire de la Marseille (1776)—

Less apparently, Dugourc’s mother also

haunted his formative years. Mothers in general

suggesting an imagination interested in minor,

are absent from the stories of young academic art-

secondary scenes and details rather than l’histoire

ists and architects flocking to Rome to train their

événementielle, or grand history.27 Dugourc’s early

eyes before antiquity. Meanwhile, paternal author-

printmaking reflects his training under Charles-​

ity figures such as the comte d’Angiviller and the

Germain de Saint-​Aubin, whose brother, during

painter David loomed over lesson plans and tight

the Revolution, designed the first assignats (dis-

purse strings, while competing fraternal cohorts

cussed in the previous chapter).28 Born into a fam-

drove each other to excellence or madness. Like

ily of talented engravers, Saint-​Aubin gained fame

other maternal figures relegated to passive roles,

primarily as the brodeur du roi (embroiderer to the

Dugourc’s mother is evoked only in death, as the

king), designing lavish embroideries for the gowns

primary reason he was prematurely forced to

of Queen Maria Leszczyńska as well as Louis

return to France; thus he had only a tantalizingly

XV’s mistress Madame de Pompadour. While he

brief glimpse of the Eternal City that would ignite

dabbled in caricature, displaying a caustic wit in an

26

a lifelong passion for antiquity. Her death pre-

early book of etchings titled Essais de papilloneries

vented him from consummating a full mastery of

humaines (1748), a satire on court intrigue and the

the language of antiquity, embodied by the erudite

rituals of society, his best-​known publication was

figure of Winckelmann, whose face he saw only in

L’art du brodeur, a treatise on embroidery, where he

passing, just long enough for a fifteen-​year-​old boy

sought to elevate it to a mimetic “art of adding the

to retain the memory of his name. His meeting

representation of any object that one desires to the

with Winckelmann and the death of his mother

surface of a fabric already woven and finished.”29

stand as twinned motifs that structure the acquisi-

In his treatise, Saint-​Aubin emphasizes the techni-

tion and loss of antiquity in the text of his life.

cal precision necessary to achieve fine designs



No known records exist in the form of

on a prepared textile using needles and bobbins,

sketchbooks or drawings that date to Dugourc’s

with the varying line weights made by different

trip to Rome. Instead, his earliest commercial

thicknesses of threads wrapped in gold and silver.

works in gouaches, miniatures, and prints prior to

Dugourc’s training under Saint-​Aubin would

his entrance into Bélanger’s architectural practice

explain the inclusion of designs for embroidered

reflect a petit-​maître sensibility that catered to

silk pockets and jackets found amid drawings for

the erudite if slightly debauched interests of the

brocaded silk in an undated album (plate 11). The

late ancien régime private art market. After an

later silk compositions he created on behalf of the

early print dedicated to Marie-​Antoinette upon

Lyon entrepreneur Camille Pernon bear traces of

her marriage to the dauphin in 1770, Dugourc

Saint-​Aubin’s sensibility and prickly wit, as much

embarked on making prints of fêtes galantes,

as they herald the sophisticated arabesque prints

Jean-Démosthène Dugourc

77

through which he sought to establish his reputa-

He eliminated the complex network of private

tion as an artist and amateur, and cocreator of the

contractors who had worked on behalf of the court

goût étrusque (fig. 22).

under his predecessor and consolidated artistic control under the sculptor Jean Hauré, who in turn consulted Dugourc for his designs. Still, criticisms mounted against the vast expenditures and irregu-

Roulette Royale

lar bookkeeping practices of the administration. In numerous ways, the national debt crisis over-

As Stéphane Castelluccio notes, magnificence

shadowed Dugourc’s ascendancy as an official

came at a high price, and despite Thierry de Ville-​

court designer in 1784, with the French monar-

d’Avray’s sincere attempts at fiscal reform, lowering

chy’s expenditures on luxury under mounting

the budget of the Garde-​Meuble proved an impos-

public scrutiny, particularly the sums spent by the

sible task.33

fashionable queen on extravagant costume balls



and lavish dresses. Dugourc’s entry into the Garde-​

there is a tendency to believe that Versailles

Meuble de la Couronne coincided with the arrival

exercised a monopoly on taste. This is belied by

of yet another finance minister, Charles-​Alexandre

Dugourc’s work elsewhere. By the 1780s, he had

de Calonne, who had been tasked with fixing

become a key figure both at the court and in the

the national debt by levying taxes but who also

luxury market in Paris, which drew the atten-

signaled, in the words of John Shovlin, the “disas-

tion of the queen, who purchased pieces from the

trous effects of the league between the absolute

famous dealers Dominique Daguerre and Martin-​

monarchy and vested interests in finance and the

Eloy Lignereux, to whom Dugourc provided

court.” Reforms were the order of the day, and

designs.34 In the final years of the ancien régime,

Marc-​Antoine Thierry de Ville-​d’Avray, the new

Dugourc’s professional ties extended beyond

head of the Garde-​Meuble, was also tasked with

the reach of Bélanger to include Daguerre, the

the futile mission of regulating the expenditures

furniture maker Georges Jacob, who was also his

on royal furnishings. Alongside the Menus-​

neighbor, and the bronziers François Rémond and

Plaisirs, it was the task of the Garde-​Meuble de la

Pierre Gouthière. Bélanger acknowledged the far-​

Couronne to maintain the image of the monar-

reaching influence of his brother-​in-​law in a letter

chy, with Thierry de Ville-​d’Avray expressing the

to François-​Honoré-​Georges Jacob-​Desmalter,

belief that “the furnishings of the royal residences

the son of Jacob, when he wrote that the furniture

30

31

would express the prestige of the throne.” As part

maker “had good sense to draw upon the counsels

of his reform measures, Thierry de Ville-​d’Avray

of my brother-​in-​law’s [Dugourc] school on the

refused to lend furnishings to courtiers other than

taste for an art that we worked together to revive

princes of the blood. Issuing inventories of the

and perfect.”35 Even as his designs entered the vast

administration’s stock, he paid particular atten-

paperwork that the Garde-​Meuble generated in

tion to the usage of cloth. Old pieces were burned

order to supply the French monarchy with settings

in order to recuperate the precious metals and

suitable for the official représentation of the king

fund the commissioning of new silks from Lyon.

and queen and their households, he continued to

32

78

Given the prestige of the French royal court,

Luxury After the terror

Fig. 22 Attributed to Jean-​ Démosthène Dugourc, project for an ornament design for silk, ca. 1790. Watercolor and ink on paper, 14.3 × 9.6 cm. Musée des arts décoratifs, Paris. Don David Weill, 1924, Inv CD 2742. Photo © MAD, Paris.

supply work for other European clients, such as,

Fontaine). For example, the drawing of a chande-

in Russia, Catherine the Great, her son the grand

lier for an unfulfilled commission for Grand Duke

duke, and her lover, General Alexander Lanskoi,

Paul at the Pavlovsk Palace in Russia has an experi-

and the future Charles IV in Spain. One can see

mental dynamism, where we can see the artist

what made Dugourc such an attractive designer

trying to lasso a final design from many potential

for wealthy clients wishing to imbue their resi-

conceptions, an arabesque of possibilities. The

dences with a sense of whimsical fantasy (a taste

sense of several sketched lines in motion rather

that would subsequently be replaced by the more

than a single definitive outline was well suited to

archaeologically rigorous work of the architects

the invention of whimsical chandeliers, in this

Charles Percier and Pierre-​François-​Léonard

case featuring putti astride swans harnessed with

Jean-Démosthène Dugourc

79

Fig. 23 Jean-​Démosthène Dugourc, design for a chandelier with twenty-​four candles, in bronze, porcelain, and rock crystal, 1784. Pen, ink and watercolor on paper, 25.6 × 19.8 cm. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Photo courtesy of Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

80

beaded reins with crystal drops and delicate silk

Spain, as well as the French court: “not only in

trimmings (fig. 23).

the decoration of architecture, but also for wall



hangings and furniture: and since this time, all of

Silk, the material of magnificence, constituted

one of the costliest expenditures for the Garde-​

the designs executed in Lyon by Pernon.”36 After

Meuble, making its design a particularly presti-

being named dessinateur of the Garde-​Meuble de

gious assignment for Dugourc. Immodestly, the

la Couronne, his relationship with Pernon became

designer wrote that, in the decade or so preceding

of prime importance. The Lyon entrepreneur’s livre

the Revolution, he had single-​handedly set the

de patrons (pattern book) is filled with drawings

example for applying “Arabesque and Etrusque”

by Dugourc’s hand, which often resemble annota-

decoration to the silks made in Lyon that were

tive sketches that were later translated into tightly

coveted by his prestigious clients in Russia and

woven designs rendered in sumptuous brocades,

Luxury After the terror

lampas broché (brocaded silk textile), and gros

Necklace Affair.40 Executed in 1787 by the queen’s

de Tours (ribbed silk textile, similar to taffeta).37

personal ébéniste Jean-​Ferdinand Schwerdfeger

Letters he exchanged with Pernon as early as 1781

and intended for her bedroom at Versailles, the

demonstrate the ways in which such luxurious

furniture case is constructed of chestnut and cov-

materials were the result of personal ties inter-

ered in rich mahogany paneling with gilt bronze

woven with commercial connections and profes-

figures, glass painting, and mother-​of-​pearl inlay

sional interests. On December 5, 1781, Pernon

(fig. 24). The central block is divided into three

sent a formal request to Dugourc regarding the

bays, separated by sculpted caryatids of the four

possibility of acquiring a large bust of the empress

seasons, with the central circular gilt bronze plaque

of Russia in plaster and having it sent to him by

featuring Fame Presenting the Muses to France

coach. On the verso of the same letter, Pernon

(the plaque was replaced in 1788). The three figures

wrote in a more intimate tone, asking for a floral

at the top originally held aloft a crown, which

vase and an eagle that would be embroidered on

was destroyed when the palace was ransacked in

a piece of white fabric panel: “I will pass on the

1789. Though Dugourc was not officially named as

flowers, but the eagle and vase are very necessary

part of the commission, a surviving wood model

to me; let me know if you can make this object for

incorporates his characteristic usage of arabesque

me as soon as possible. I hope that you and your

motifs, which indicates his likely involvement

wife both benefit from good health. Good bye.

(fig. 25). The queen had conceivably commissioned

Your friend always. Pernon.” Dugourc responded

the updated version in an effort to regain a sense

by making a quick little sketch of an eagle balanc-

of authority after the Diamond Necklace Affair,

ing the vase on top of its head, adding “I drew the

as if she sought to use the powers of furniture to

bolt of lightning under the feet imagining that this

contain and put away the rumors that had begun

would add to the effect.” Pernon turned to his

circulating to ruin her public reputation.41 In 1785,

inventive friend in Paris to resolve design issues

Jeanne de Valois Saint Rémy, known as the com­

for fabrics that would entail complex arrangements

tesse de la Motte, claimed to have connections with

of arabesques that defied the capabilities of local

the queen and tricked the Cardinal de Rohan into

Lyon designers, who could execute floral patterns

purchasing a diamond necklace that the countess

but could hardly conceive of adding a thunderbolt

promised to offer to the queen in order to patch up

to an eagle with outspread wings to heighten the

the desperate cardinal’s sour relationship with her.

effects of a silk wall panel. In contrast to earlier

The jewelers Boehmer and Bassenge had already

38

39

designers, Dugourc eschewed the naturalistic floral

unsuccessfully offered the 1.6 million livre neck-

motifs favored in Lyon, introducing a strong axial

lace—which contained 647 diamonds and weighed

symmetry of arabesques into the brocaded silks,

2,800 carats—to Marie-​Antoinette, who had

which were extraordinarily difficult to weave.

turned it down, exclaiming that France’s involve-



ment in the American War of Independence meant

By far Dugourc’s most prestigious design at

court was for Marie-​Antoinette’s jewel cabinet,

that it needed to spend its money on warships

made shortly after one of the greatest scandals of

instead of diamonds. After the plot was discovered,

the monarchy’s final years, known as the Diamond

Louis XVI decided to try Cardinal de Rohan and

Jean-Démosthène Dugourc

81

Fig. 24 Jean-​Ferdinand Schwerdfeger, after Jean-​Démosthène Dugourc, jewelry cabinet (serre-​bijoux) of Marie-​Antoinette, 1787. Mahogany, gilded bronze, mother-​of-​pearl, and porcelain, 258 × 200 × 67 cm. Musée national des Châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon, Versailles, OA5515. Photo © RMN–Grand Palais / Art Resource, New York (Christophe Fouin).

Fig. 25 Jean-​Démosthène Dugourc, model for a royal jewel cabinet, ca. 1787. Wood, wax, and ink on paper, 78.7 × 69.5 × 23.5 cm. The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, 65.20. Photo: The Walters Art Museum.

de la Motte in a court of law, which drew public

of Paris, mocking the spendthrift queen and her

attention to the trial, with the public believing

helpless husband and portraying them as a herd of

that the queen was complicit in the affair. The

swine.43

association of her name with the subsequent trial



of Cardinal de Rohan opened the floodgates to

Diamond Necklace Affair in mind when he was

libelous pamphlets that sought to bring down her

designing the jewel cabinet on behalf of the queen.

reputation, and with it, that of the French crown.

Nonetheless, he would have at the very least been

Given this context, the queen’s commission for

cognizant of the affair and would have recognized

a jewelry cabinet strikes one as an ill-​conceived

the symbolic importance of the jewel cabinet.

response to the tide of paper pamphlets, satires,

Yet the mounting criticism directed against the

and libels that began to circulate on the streets

queen and her spending habits made it evident that

42

It is unlikely that Dugourc explicitly had the

Jean-Démosthène Dugourc

83

Fig. 26 Jean-​Démosthène Dugourc, L’Air, title plate from Arabesques, 1782. Etching, 26 × 18.5 cm. Purchased for the museum by the advisory council; 1921-6-298-1, Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, New York.

luxury objects produced at such spectacular costs

Couronne, tethered his name to the lineage of

could have been conceived as a direct affront to the

architects, painters, and designers who had added

French public, who no longer adored their queen.

their own personal flourishes and marks to the tradition of arabesque prints since the Renaissance. Even as he undertook important commissions

String Theory

from royal and aristocratic clients, Dugourc continued to experiment in print, an aspect of produc-

84

Before turning to Dugourc’s work during the

tion bound to his self-​identification as an amateur,

Revolution, I want to consider a set of his prints

in the sense of what Charlotte Guichard has

that are crucial to understanding arabesque

described as “someone who practiced the arts in

designs as the intellectual source of his broader

an occasional manner,” rather than an artisan who

oeuvre. Arabesques, published in 1782, two

was forced to copy the work of others for compen-

years before he joined the Garde-​Meuble de la

sation.44 Amateur forays into printmaking could

Luxury After the terror

provide a space of freedom and recreation, and an

paired themes of Mars or War (Mars ou la Guerre)

artistic practice liberated from the demands of a

and Vénus ou la Coquetterie. In War, the octagonal

deadline or commission. One example, dated to

medallion of Hercules clubbing Cacus signals the

April 22, 1783, shows a woman in mourning hold-

bellicose theme, echoed in the arms and weapons

ing an urn next to a large antique tomb. The text at

scattered throughout the plate. Perhaps the most

the bottom describes the print as an “essay retou-

puzzling plate is Venus, for instead of choosing to

ché,” an attempt using a newly invented corrosive

connect the ancient goddess with love or beauty,

ink that Dugourc claimed would etch the plate.

Dugourc represents her with the affectations of



Arabesques operates by means of doubled

figures and doubled meanings, attempting to

coquetry (fig. 27). Two sphinxes with butterfly wings and peacock headdresses gaze at themselves

suture the clarity of allegory onto the obscurity

in mirrors. True to allegorical form, they coquett-

of the decorative fields of ornament. It adapts the

ishly hold fans, as if flirting with the viewer. While

traditionally vertical format of the arabesque into

evoking some of the satirical motifs drawn by

a form that fills the entire plate, as if Dugourc

Saint-​Aubin in the Livre de caricatures and Essais

wishes to turn a marginal type of ornament into

de papilloneries humaines that mocked social but-

a kind of painting composition. The six plates

terflies, the plate also contains references to clas-

feature motifs derived from natural elements and

sical sculpture, such as the depiction of the Three

mythological gods, which would later serve as a

Graces—Aglaia (Beauty), Euphrosyne (Mirth), and

creative wellspring for furniture, wallpaper, and

Thalia (Abundance)—shown in the central oval

drawings. The title page, which also represents

cameo. Dugourc reused a similar medallion for a

the element of air, features Dugourc’s name in the

drawing from around 1785 for a richly decorated

center of the composition, surrounded by putti

screen of carved and gilded wood and silk, one

that rest upon an eagle and by airborne creatures

that was likely never executed.45

such as parrots, owls, and doves (fig. 26). The next



plate depicts Earth (La Terre) through the figure

by Dugourc; as a genre they drew heavily upon the

of the ancient Roman goddess Cybele, who holds

precedent of Renaissance decorative motifs taken

sheaves of wheat in each outstretched hand, as well

from the Vatican Loggia. The celebrated publica-

as a peach tree in her left hand and a fig tree in

tion of Giovanni Volpato’s Le Loggie di Rafaele

her right. Dangling from each palm is a cluster of

nel Vaticano, which appeared in Paris in 1770, led

grapes, which whet the appetites of a spotted leop-

to a veritable explosion of arabesque ornament

ard and a lion, clambering atop two large rinceaux.

in Parisian architecture, especially in the field of

A medallion with a female worshipper in front

interior decoration.46 The ties to the Renaissance

of a statue of Zeus is located between two squir-

are made clear by the inclusion of Dugourc’s

rels dangling on a string, which also supports two

prints in a collection titled Recueil d’arabesques,

embracing putti. Reflexive symmetry dominates

contenant les loges du Vatican, gravées d’après

the compositions of Fire (Feu) and Water (L’Eau),

Raphaël d’Urbin et grand nombre d’autres composi-

which continue upon the theme of the natural

tions du même genre, dans le style antique, d’après

elements. The last two plates are devoted to the

Normand, Quéverdo, Salembier, Prieur, Boucher,

Of course, arabesques were only half invented

Jean-Démosthène Dugourc

85

Fig. 27 Jean-​Démosthène Dugourc, Venus ou la Coquetterie, plate from Arabesques, 1782. Etching, 27 × 20.8 × 0.3 cm. Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1928, 28.44.114-.119. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Photo: author.

86

Dugourg, et autres. Compiled and published in

the printmaker François-​Marie-​Isidore Quéverdo.

a large format intended for the luxury publica-

A majority of the images included in the bound

tion market by Joubert in year X (1802), the book

volume make explicit reference to the architectural

draws a clear line from Raphael’s incorporation of

settings for which such decorations were intended,

grotesque ornament in the decorative program

or the pedagogical purpose of ornament prints

of the Vatican Loggia to the eighteenth-​century

“useful for artists and students.” Dugourc’s plates

versions provided by a range of French printmak-

remove both of these references, instead refer-

ers, architects, and painters. In the reference to

ring to himself as the inventor and engraver of the

the seasons and the combination of figurative and

designs.

ornamental motifs, Dugourc’s designs resemble



a number of the other examples, such as those by

which grotesques had traveled beyond Renaissance

Luxury After the terror

Prints were the primary medium through

Italy and reached France. Fifteenth-​century artists

for theorists seeking to establish a moral purity in

and antiquarians who had rediscovered ancient

French architecture. In his volumes on architecture

Roman decorations in the Domus Aurea sometime

for the 1788 Encyclopédie méthodique, Antoine

around 1480 mistakenly believed the ancient villa

Chrysostôme Quatremère de Quincy devoted

to be a series of caves, or grottes, because it had

a long entry to arabesques, “forms of ornament

been used as foundations for later buildings and

that are often the most capricious, fantastical, and

thereby confounded arabesques with the term

imaginary, whether in sculpture or painting, that

“grottesche” to describe the ornaments, weightless

architecture employs in the decoration of walls,

wall decorations that gradually conjured associa-

panels, doorframes, pilasters, friezes, and some-

tions with the fantastic, bizarre, and capricious.

times even on vaults and ceilings.”50 For this grave

The combinations of the vegetal, the mineral,

architectural theorist and moral crusader, who was

and the animal arranged in loose structures were

obsessed with classical origins and absolute order,

particularly shocking, since these rare examples

arabesques posed a semantically loose and visu-

of painting from antiquity seemed to be in direct

ally messy topic. While they possibly originated

defiance of Horace’s injunctions against the use

in the Islamic prohibition of figurative images

of monstrous license. The goldsmith Benvenuto

(but were already found in classical antiquity),

Cellini wrote that the proper designation for such

Quatremère de Quincy claimed that arabesques

decoration would be monsters “inasmuch as the

eventually came to cover virtually all of architec-

ancients, who delighted in composing monsters

ture’s surfaces. Seeking to define this ornament

out of goats, cows, and horses, called these chi-

with multiple names—moresque, grotesque, ara-

merical hybrids by the name of monsters.” Later

besque—and many points of origin, he writes that

brought to the courtly architecture of France by

“one can only define the arabesque in calling it the

Italian mannerists, arabesque designs covered the

abuse of ornament.”51 For Quatremère de Quincy,

surfaces and stucco elements of Fontainebleau; the

arabesques endangered architecture by encroach-

intricate patterns of tracery found in the prints

ing upon its moral authority, an attack undoubt-

of artists such as Jacques Androuet du Cerceau

edly aimed at a society that privileged surface

even migrated to the spatial rituals of court dance,

decoration over structural stability.

which culminated in the ballet spectacles of



Louis XIV.

ister the quality that enabled the proliferation of



this ornament on so many surfaces and sites: its

47

48

By the end of the eighteenth century, ara-

Histories of the arabesque often fail to reg-

besques had acquired associations with the fasci-

nonrepresentational, nearly anti-​mimetic quality,

nation for the Orient and fantastical projections in

described by André Chastel as “primarily a vertical

the form of turquerie, motifs that perhaps initially

world entirely defined by graphic play, without

had to do with internal critiques of European

depth or weight, a mixture of rigor and inconsis-

morality but eventually laid the foundations for a

tency bringing to mind dreams. . . . Hence a double

colonizing discourse of the Other.49 All the same,

sentiment of liberation, from concrete expanses

the loose associations of arabesques with licen-

where gravity reigns, and from the order of the

tiousness made it no less dangerous, particularly

world that governs the distinction of beings.”52

Jean-Démosthène Dugourc

87

In the course of the eighteenth century, arabesques

Arabesques expresses the desire to pull away from

acquired associations with the inventions of imagi-

the anonymity of drawing in a workshop con-

native free play. Kant chose to include wallpaper

text in the decision to publish his signature so

ornament à la grecque as a type of pulchritudo vaga,

prominently on each of the six plates. An elegant

or a “free beauty” without a definite purpose, in a

DG monogram at the bottom left corner of each

passage from Critique of Judgment, published in

plate (except the title plate bearing his full name)

1790: “Many birds (the parrot, the humming-​bird,

is proudly positioned next to “inventit et fecit,”

the bird of paradise) and a lot of crustaceans in the

thus displaying his dexterity of mind and hand.54

sea are [free] beauties themselves [and] belong to

The insignia is composed of elegant loops and

no object determined by concepts as to its purpose,

interlocking letters, drawing attention to the D,

but we like them freely and on their own account.

the first letter of his distinguished (and probably

Thus designs à la grecque, the foliage on borders

self-​chosen) classical second name, Démosthène.

or on wallpaper, etc., mean nothing on their own:

He transforms his last name into a noble one by

they represent [vorstellen] nothing, no object under

splitting Du from Gourc. Seeded into his compo-

a determinate concept, and are free beauties.” This

sitions, the artist’s meandering monogram also

is a rare piece of meandering prose in a text that is

draws attention to the most inventive flourishes of

otherwise rigorous in its frameworks of intellec-

his arabesques, where he deviates the furthest from

tion. Moreover, the passage is striking for the way

the polished Renaissance standard established

Kant has shaped a kind of arabesque composition

by Raphael. These marks consist of supplemental

out of text, tying creatures from the air and the sea

strings, laced and tied into loops and curlicues,

to foliage and borders and wallpaper.

a disegno logic of the line undone by the embroi-



derer’s needling thread. Etched marks dissolve

53

88

A sense of free play and invention is let loose

in Dugourc’s Arabesques, printed plates unleashed

into the most delicate of filaments, which are

from the demands of a client or patron wishing

tied together into tiny bows, superfluous signs of

for a piece of decoration that would suit his or her

femininity with loose ends that, if tugged, would

personal desires or forms of professional repre-

dissolve the entire order of the design into nothing

sentation. Copying and invention were the visual

more than a heap of tangled skeins.55

parameters of Dugourc’s work as a professional



draftsman, as he learned to translate the rules of

arabesque as told to us by Kant: a design, on the

architecture into his drawings, calibrating line

one hand, whose free association and repetitious

weights, shading, and measurements to transform

nature guarantees its freedom from any specific

drawing into a graphic system of representation

end, a form of applied art with no clear directive

that increasingly bore the weight of disciplinary

that leads one into the realm of the imagination

codification over the course of the eighteenth

rather than rote manual labor. On the other hand,

century. Though he never received professional

it might be possible to read Dugourc’s string play

training in architecture, working under Bélanger

as a kind of visual anxiety about the feminine, the

left him confident enough to later propose signifi-

fear that a Kantian sense of pulchritudo vaga was

cant projects for Charles IV of Spain. By contrast,

most commonly to be seen and enjoyed within

Luxury After the terror

Loose marks are the very definition of the

the privacy of boudoirs and bedrooms, interior



feminine spaces occupied by loose women whose

eighteenth-​century ornamentiste to a twentieth-​

power resided in their ability to control weak men

century psychoanalyst is quite an associative leap.

by beguiling them out of their masculinity and

All the same, I can’t help but think that artistic

their public power (hence Quatremère de Quincy’s

freedom and liberation is only half of the picture

great aversion to arabesques). Quite literally,

of Dugourc’s arabesques. Though the compari-

we see the precarious structure of Dugourc’s

son is anachronistic, seeing them alongside the

arabesque for Vénus ou la Coquetterie held up by

squiggle game helps to draw out the ways in which

purse strings, fans, and powder puffs, with pen-

Dugourc’s tangled lines of communication adopt

dulous jewels hanging from strings of beads that

different forms and postures, binding and wrap-

terminate in loosely tied ends.

ping, loosening and delineating. There is a déjà vu



quality to many of his images, as if they have the

A noose, a lasso, a bow, a bond: lots of things

Admittedly, to go from the prints of an

can be made out of bits of string, especially by

look of the uncannily familiar, a sense of the anti-

little boys devoid of the ability to speak their mind,

quated and already outdated, a historical malaise

who turn to their hands to do the talking that their

made manifest even before the term had officially

mouths cannot. At least this is what the child psy-

become a concept in the historical and literary

choanalyst D. W. Winnicott divined when playing

imagination of the late nineteenth century.58 Part

the “squiggle game,” a therapy technique he used

of this may be the fact that we know, based on

when working with children who were often trau-

Dugourc’s autobiography, that he never really had

matized by the loss of a parent. Winnicott clearly

direct access to the arabesque motifs of the subter-

intuited the power of paperwork to resurface anxi-

ranean world of the Domus Aurea (unlike other

eties, fantasies, and fears that his young patients

French artists who often left behind graffitied sig-

could not otherwise say aloud. The game entailed

natures as proof of their visits). And unlike Percier,

taking turns doodling on a sheet of paper together

it is highly unlikely that Dugourc had the chance

with his patient, who would fill in or continue the

to carefully study and draw Raphael’s deftly woven

drawing by adding his or her own lines to make

antique grotesques on the walls of the Vatican

a picture. For such a simple exercise, the game

Loggia in person. Any sense of originality would

yielded a rich accumulation of images.56 A seven-​

have been derived from and mediated by the realm

year-​old boy whom Winnicott worked with drew

of print. Recall, too, that access to the antiquity of

string during the exercise in order to express sepa-

Rome had been denied to him by the death of

ration anxiety from his depressed mother, sub-

his mother, which forced his early return to Paris

sequently leading Winnicott to think of string as

without allowing him to truly study and grasp

a useful tool in therapy sessions. He viewed it as a

antiquity in all of its full splendor; his premature

potent symbol that “can be looked upon as an

return to Paris gave birth to a lifelong enthusiasm

extension of all other techniques of communica-

for the elusive classical past.

tion. String joins just as it also helps in the wrap-



ping up of objects and in the holding of uninte-

interpretation here, we might say that the early

grated material” (fig. 28).

death of Dugourc’s mother caused him to adopt a

57

Tarrying with the psychoanalytic mode of

Jean-Démosthène Dugourc

89

portfolio of ideas because of his mother’s untimely death, consigned Dugourc to the secondary role of filling in the decorative voids left behind by other more important decorators in Bélanger’s firm, such as Lhuillier. Arabesques also registers the ways in which family connections were bound up in his fabricated designs and the ways that arabesques, pace Kant, were also about a sense of being tied up in the past paths of others.

Dugourc’s arabesques hold things together,

connecting structure to ornament, at the same time serving to dissolve solid forms into nothing more than voids covered with gossamer illusions. The language of illogic employed in Dugourc’s designs carries over even to his name, comprised of letters laced together by the same looping line, gently pried apart to form the bellies of the D and the G. Similar chimerical shapes can be found in the knotted tails of the two sphinxes perched at the top of the plate for Vénus ou la Coquetterie, binding the structure of his name to the twitching extremities of a mythical figure that famously Fig. 28 Donald W. Winnicott, squiggle game drawing from “A Child Psychiatry Case Illustrating Delayed Reaction to Loss, Drawing Number 9.” Reprinted with the permission of the Winnicott Trust.

posed the riddle of man to Oedipus and that would later be seen by Hegel as “the symbol, as it were, of symbolism itself.”59 In less obscure ways, this half-​human female monster, pictured doubled and gazing at her reflection in a mirror, would in turn be unleashed by revolutionaries to criticize the decadence and corruption of the monarchy,

90

particular attitude to the antique, what we might

embodied by the mythic figure of the wicked

otherwise term (borrowing from Freud) a com-

queen, the cause of France’s ills, the evil source of

promise formation defined by an originary lack

the female cavern, the grotto of nightmares, and

(only three months there and a brief glimpse at

symbol of a maternal revenge who embodies the

Winckelmann’s face), supplemented by mediated

powers of horror (fig. 29).60

and belatedly accessed images of classical antiq-



uity, found in places such as Volpato’s lavishly

issued Arabesques after completing an architectural

illustrated book. The absence of expertise, of not

commission for the Hôtel Vaupalière. Dubbed the

having spent enough time in Rome to build a

“antichambre Dugourc,” the first-​floor vestibule

Luxury After the terror

The suggestion has been made that Dugourc

Fig. 29 Anonymous, caricature showing Marie-​Antoinette as a leopard, late eighteenth century. Etching, 11.8 × 9.8 cm. The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1962, 62.520.16. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Photo: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

features panels based on Arabesques, which the

Loose Ends

designer allegedly made in 1780, though no redecoration campaign was organized that year

A pair of silver Dianas depart for the hunt on a

(plate 12).61 Closer inspection reveals that the

fragment of one of the last brocaded silks that the

panels are wallpapers signed by Dugourc and

Garde-​Meuble de la Couronne commissioned

dated to 1790, just three years before the residence

before the arrest of Thierry de Ville-​d’Avray on

was seized as émigré property. After the furni-

August 14, 1792, two days after the storming of

ture was sold, the government claimed the house

the Tuileries (fig. 30). While Dugourc sought to

and rented it to the limonadier (lemonade seller)

reinvent himself as a printmaker, the royal admin-

Cathenois on 17 Brumaire, year IV (November 8,

istration continued commissioning works, as if

1795), who transformed it into a dance hall. For

doing so would ensure a return to normalcy and

once, Quatremère de Quincy would have found

the eventual restoration of the monarchy. Joseph

the location of arabesques befitting of the resi-

Savournin, the royal agent in Lyon for the Garde-​

dence’s new licentious function.

Meuble, had sent two samples of the “damas bleu

Jean-Démosthène Dugourc

91

gathering water in a grotto, and the terminal motif of leopards reaching for clusters of grapes, recall the arabesques of Dugourc, who refined the designs supplied by the local Lyonnais designer Joseph Gaspard Picard, before the Garde-​Meuble ordered 300 aunes (approximately 400 yards) of the sumptuous furnishing fabric from Pernon.63 Though the silk arrived at the Garde-​Meuble in the spring of 1792, the mythological fabric was never used to upholster the queen’s furnishings. That Easter, the family had been barred from traveling to Saint-​Cloud. Thierry de Ville-​d’Avray was assassinated while imprisoned during the September Massacres.64 On September 3, 1792, Jean-​Bernard Restout, who had replaced the former intendant at the Garde-​Meuble, informed Pernon of “the complete suspension of all works formerly ordered by M. Thierry.”65 The silk that had been woven for the queen at Saint-​Cloud was seized by the revolutionary government and later used to pay off a national debt owed to “le service des Capitaines grecs,” mercenaries who had fought on behalf of the French. With the exception of a surviving fragment in London, the rest of the brocaded silk was probably destroyed in order to recuperate the silver.66

Fig. 30 Textile fragment, ca. 1792. Brocaded silk, 19.29 × 8.07 cm. Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Image © Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

Cloth and textiles often appeared amid the

myths that sprang up during the Revolution, though rarely did they involve the sumptuous productions of brocaded silk from Lyon.67 In the fictional account of the Revolution told by Hilary Mantel, a picture of lace comes to the mind of

céleste et argent” the previous summer, hop-

Georges Danton, just before the leader of the Paris

ing to work out the final details of the design.

Commune is scheduled to be guillotined on April 5,

He described vertical scenes of “figures de dianne

1794, in the form of a distant childhood memory:

ou chasses avec Piramides, et aussi Celui a figures D’Enfants et vases bas-​reliefs,” to be woven of silk

Rue Honoré: One day, a long time ago, his

and high-​quality silver for the queen’s furniture at

mother sat by a window, making lace. The

Saint-​Cloud. The full repeat, including nymphs

broad morning light streamed in on both of

62

92

Luxury After the terror

them. He saw that it was the gaps that were

geography of pockets, patches, and tears,” textile

important, the spaces between the threads

spaces that brought together a tangled arabesque

which made the pattern, and not the threads

of objets trouvés: “They even knew what to expect

themselves. “Show me how to do it,” he said.

to be the contents of pockets: toys, bits of string,

“I want to learn.”

odd objects, in those of a drowned boy; cotton and



thread, a tiny piece of soap wrapped up in a hand-

“Boys don’t do it,” she said. Her face was

composed; her work continued. His throat

kerchief, in those of a drowned girl; keys, tobacco

closed at the exclusion.

pouches, snuff-​boxes—a standard instrument of



sociability, an ideal entrée en matière to a hesitant

Now, whenever he looks at a piece of

lace—even though his eyes are bad—he seems

conversation.”69

to see every thread in the work. At the



Committee table, the image rises at the back

the tricoteuses, the women who furiously clicked

of his mind, and forces him to look far, far

their knitting needles while watching the victims

back into his childhood.

mount the guillotine. Far from the ephemeral

68

Textile making figured, too, in the legend of

strings used by Dugourc to create chimerical fanWe could take this delicate, made-​up narrative fila-

tasies, the tricoteuses spun yarns to knit practical

ment as a metaphor for Mantel’s own art, of filling

things like stockings and liberty bonnets to patri-

in the gaps left behind by the threads of history

otically stave off the cold. The term was first used

and making intricate new patterns in between the

in the winter of 1794–95 to describe, according to

spaces of the revolutionary narrative already fully

Dominique Godineau, “the women who, installed

crammed with so many dates, figures, minute

in the tribunals open to all, had followed, or fol-

analyses, and footnotes woven from the archives.

lowed the masculine club meetings and diverse

No matter how micro one’s history writing gets,

revolutionary assemblies.”70 The allegorical print

as fine as a blade of grass, it is hard to write a story

of Madame Sans Culotte embodied the anxieties of

that feels as true and compelling as the fictional

class and gender that shaped the mythic image

version imagined by Mantel, where no amount of

of this laborer, showing a gentle if impoverished

exegetical digging or rifling through the crumbling

working-​class woman with her knitting needles,

papers of the archives will fill in all the moth-​eaten

a cat playfully pawing at the red yarn (fig. 31).

holes of subjective historical experience. And yet,

During the paranoid context of the Thermidorian

in the Archives de la Seine can be found the loose

Reaction, as the new government sought to dispel

ends of the Revolution, amid the records of those

popular uprisings such as the Conspiracy of the

who had committed suicide by drowning them-

Equals led by Gracchus Babeuf, the term was

selves in the river at that time. The concierges in

weaponized. Poor women were thus accused of

charge of retrieving the corpses at the end of the

having overstepped their domestic boundaries and

eighteenth century acquired a thorough knowledge

inciting men to violence.

of the material remainders of the victims, leaving



aside the dead bodies to instead become experts in

violence of the Terror, an image of the bloodthirsty

what Richard Cobb calls the “intimate and unique

revolutionary woman was invented on the basis

In the attempts to disavow the organized

Jean-Démosthène Dugourc

93

Fig. 31 Anonymous, Madame Sans Culotte, ca. 1792. Stipple engraving with hand coloring, 25 × 17.5 cm. G 26300, Musée Carnavalet, Paris. Photo: Paris Musées.

94

of “historic approximations, fictional recon-

public competition for designs for the national

structions, fantasies.”71 Yet other types of textile

money. He boasted that his currency, made of

fabrication took place. Silk too was caught up in

“warp-​knitted and dyed” (tricots à chaîne et chinés)

the politics of the period, evidenced by a woven

silk would be of the highest quality, unlike what

pair of stockings that pronounced support for the

he called money made from the “vulgar arts” of

finance minister Jacques Necker, though one can

papermaking, printing, and engraving.72 Jolivet

hardly imagine these on the calves of Robespierre

proposed manufacturing the national currency

(fig. 32). Perhaps the most unusual example for

from silk, which would “ensure the public fortune

the repurposing of silk was the proposal for silk

through the joining of difficult arts, rare in France,

assignats, to be knitted on behalf of the nation.

and completely unknown abroad.” The rarity and

Étienne Jolivet, a Lyonnais maker of silk stock-

difficulty of manufacturing silk would prevent the

ings, submitted his proposal as part of the 1792

money from being counterfeited, since the bills

Luxury After the terror

Fig. 32 (left) Stockings with “Necker” pattern, ca. 1788–93. Woven silk. Rogers Fund, 1923, 26.56.123. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Photo: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Fig. 33 (right) Attributed to Étienne Jolivet, silk assignat of 500 livres, ca. 1792. Woven silk, 13.5 × 12.7 cm. GB 1090, Musée Carnavalet, Paris. Photo: Paris Musées.

could only be produced in Lyon, where he and his



business partner Sarrazin had invented a knitting

unusual, given the political violence that had ran-

machine that created silks that would not fray

sacked Lyon and ground the silk industry to a halt.

when cut or torn. Jolivet’s assignats appear at first

Of course, certain lucky entrepreneurs managed to

glance to be rather crude, though the dyed letters

continue producing works. Pernon’s livre de com-

and numbers depended on a selective dying pro-

missions from the years 1791–93 contains orders for

cess (fig. 33). However, this may have been deliber-

dress silk for foreign courts, particularly Russia,

ate, since by the time Jolivet submitted his knitted

Sweden, and Spain. The last order took place on

samples, the technique already had popular asso-

July 3, 1793, a few months before the Siege of Lyon

ciations with the tricoteuses. The selection com-

destroyed the city.74 From August to October 1793,

mission that met in the spring of 1793 considered

French Republican troops sought to seize control

Jolivet’s suggestion seriously, though it eventually

over the federalist revolt in Lyon, a royalist strong-

abandoned silk in favor of paper money.

hold already battling social unrest between master

73

Jolivet’s proposal for silk assignats was

Jean-Démosthène Dugourc

95

weavers, who demanded higher wages through an

the wine, a blend very prejudicial to the health.”78

end to the royal monopoly, and merchants, who

Rather than eat off them, Robert preferred paint-

sought to maintain control over the silk indus-

ing his plates, passing them off to a porter who

try. After the city surrendered in October, the

sold them for a louis apiece to English tourists

Committee of Public Safety called for its complete

milling about the prison, fascinated to be witness-

destruction. Jolivet’s patriotic invention appears

ing the events transpiring in Paris.79

not to have been enough to prevent suspicion



of his counterrevolutionary ties. On 9 Pluviôse,

ised Dugourc the possibility of a new start. Like

year II (January 28, 1794), the thirty-​four-​year-​old

other designers and artisans, he grasped the advan-

was sentenced to death.

tages posed by the abolition of the guilds and the

75



96

76

As Lyon was ransacked and Thierry de Ville-​

Paper, more than silk or dinner plates, prom-

development of new intellectual property laws that

d’Avray became a victim of the September

promised greater legal protections and financial

Massacres, Dugourc claimed to have simply tuned

rewards to designers and artisans.80 His subse-

out the entire Revolution. At least this audacious

quent claims to have remained dormant during the

assertion is made in his autobiography, written

Revolution are belied by the material evidence of

from the retrospective safety of 1800. He wrote

his activities. In 1790, he proposed a print of the

that he decided to turn his attention to quiet stud-

Fête de la Fédération. Though commemorative fes-

ies of antiquity, “firmly having decided not to play

tival prints were issued as souvenirs and claimed a

any role in the strange event that had overturned

journalistic veracity of the ephemeral events, they

his country.”77 We can hear Dugourc’s regressive

were often, according to Richard Taws, mediated

tendencies at work in this textual pattern, a return

representations subject to varying viewpoints and

to antiquity as a form of retreat from the tumultu-

forms of artistic “exaggerations, tricks, and subtle-

ous social change around him, the inner amateur

ties.”81 This was certainly the case with Dugourc’s

refusing to partake in the dangerous public work

wash and ink drawing (fig. 34). Not only is the

of politics. Dugourc does not say outright that

image set within a trompe l’oeil frame—a rhetori-

he was a royalist, which would have been risky,

cal device intended to suggest to the viewer the

especially given the exile and condemnation of his

illusory nature of the picture within—but also

aristocratic and royal patrons and the imprison-

the image bears the unusual inscription “fédé-

ment of his close collaborators. These included

ration des français dans la capitale de l’Empire.”

Bélanger, who was arrested, along with his lover,

Curiously, Dugourc has replaced Jacques Cellerier’s

Mademoiselle Dervieux, on 15 Pluviôse, year II

temporary arch with a design of his own concep-

(February 3, 1794) and thrown into jail at Saint-​

tion, replacing the two side openings of the arch

Lazare, next to the painter Hubert Robert, who

with spolia ornaments and adding short porches

spent his incarceration painting prison plates with

on the cross axis. Even stranger is the carving on

landscapes. Notoriously inedible, prison meals

the frieze: “A la félicité eternelle de l’Empire.”

were described by contemporaries as horriblement

Perhaps these are the types of “antique studies”

mauvaise and typically consisted of “salted her-

Dugourc had in mind when claiming to have been

rings, dried cod, and maggot-​infested cheese, and

otherwise preoccupied during the Revolution.

Luxury After the terror

Fig. 34 Jean-​Démosthène Dugourc, The Festival of the Federation, 1790. Pen and black ink and gray wash over black chalk, 6.3 × 9.45 cm. Image courtesy of Sotheby’s.



At least in scale, Dugourc’s work during this

intended. One example can be found at the top

period was considerably smaller in comparison to

of a letter issued by the Minister of the Interior

the visible public projects undertaken by paint-

announcing the coup of 18 Brumaire (fig. 35).

ers such as David. They are almost deliberately so,

Dugourc’s seemingly marginal and insignificant

suggesting that the designer understood that the

images participated in the collective transfer of

sites of power were no longer to be found in

political power from the sovereign body of the

the bedchambers of royal palaces but on the space

monarch to the administrative and bureaucratic

of the page. He became a prolific maker of en-​tête

institutions that claimed to represent the popular

de lettres, or official letterheads, which conferred

sovereignty of the new French Republic.

power and authority to new political entities such



as the Committee of Public Safety.82 In many

tions, Dugourc joined a wallpaper business with

cases, Dugourc’s designs outlasted the revolution-

Étienne-​Alexandre-​Jacques Anisson-​Dupéron,

ary regimes for which they had originally been

the former director of the Imprimerie royale.

Characteristic of his entrepreneurial ambi-

Jean-Démosthène Dugourc

97

Fig. 35 Jean-​Démosthène Dugourc (letterhead design), circulaire du ministre de l’Intérieur, Laplace, aux administrations centrales et municipales, 1799. Woodcut. Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris. Photo: BnF.

Initiated in 1791, the manufactory occupied the

and his capital ensured the early success of the

hôtel de Longueville, not far from Henry Auguste’s

endeavor in a crowded and highly competitive

goldsmith’s workshop. It advertised its bona fides

market dominated by makers such as Réveillon

as a patriotic enterprise: “The genuine republi-

and Arthur et Robert, a profession equally popu-

can paper, proper for covering administrative

lated by radical Jacobins such as Pierre Cietty,

meeting rooms, public establishments, private

the close acquaintance of the Duplay household

offices and apartments, can always be found at

and Robespierre, and the Lyonnais manufacturer

the Manufacture républicaine, place du Carroussel

Joseph Dufour, whom Jean-​Marie Collot d’Her-

[sic], hôtel Longueville; those seeking origi-

bois, member of the Committee of Public Safety,

nal plates should address citoyen Dugourc.”

selected to help “purify the rebel city” after the

Anisson-​Dupéron’s position as the royal printer

Siege of Lyon.84

83

98

Luxury After the terror



Arabesques featured amid the wallpapers

series of assignats in 1790 as head of the royal

designed by Dugourc for the Manufacture républi-

printing works, a position he was ultimately

cain, providing a visual continuity with the imme-

forced to resign from after he was suspected of

diate past, even as they collapsed the distinctions

being a royalist.88 Printing the nation’s first paper

between public and private space and flattened

money inevitably brought with it considerable

the material heterogeneity of the ancien régime

responsibilities and anxieties, and in the hyper-

interior with paper simulacra. Complex arabesque

bolic emphasis on creating “genuine Republican

decorations that catered to the growing taste for

wallpaper,” one can detect the apprehensions about

antiquity enabled specialized designers to distin-

circulation, counterfeiting, and surveillance found

guish themselves from more ordinary artisans and

in the public debate on the assignats as structuring

prevent the possibility of copyright infringement.

the uses of wallpaper. After all, what would a false

With his prior expertise in designing silk and

Republican version look like?

working at the Garde-​Meuble, Dugourc, amateur



and artist that he was, could at last claim author-

during the Revolution suggest that the divisions

ity over the entirety of the walls’ composition,

between “official” documents and other less formal

no longer having to answer to an architectural

kinds of paperwork were minimal, with objects

manager or having to fill in the voids left behind

such as the republican playing cards collapsing

by a sculptor with better classical credentials. In a

private enterprise and patriotic aims. After the

more immediate sense, it retained the mate-

journée of August 10, Dugourc sought to distance

rial traces of the past with few complaints about

himself from Anisson-​Dupéron. He turned his

the reappearance of despotic luxury, such as the

attention from wallpaper to playing cards, leasing

arabesque motifs in the Hôtel Vaupalière that were

a space with his Jacobin business partner Urbaine

taken from Dugourc’s engraved plates from the

Jaume in the former warehouse of the Académie

ancien régime.86 The reuse of motifs is not entirely

royale de musique, down the street from the

surprising, since wallpaper manufacturers readily

hôtel de Longueville.89 Officially patented on

admitted that the market as a whole consisted of

February 17, 1793, a little less than a month after

“imitating on paper everything that is executed in

the king’s execution, the thirty-​two cards were

fabric, cloth, plaster, marble, stucco, wood, or any

printed in woodcut and hand-​colored on a single

other matter used for furniture or decoration.”

sheet, after which some were cut into official decks.

85



87

In remediating the silk motifs of the past,

Fervent reproductions on and out of paper

Perhaps in anticipation of the popularity of the

wallpaper might be seen as an attempt to recu-

cards, Dugourc and Jaume requested permission

perate the financial losses of a material associ-

from the Minister of the Interior to expand the

ated with the monarchy’s insurmountable debts,

premises of their factory. The petition is dated to

an arabesque iteration of the trompe l’oeil prints

February 22, 1793, just six days after the cards were

of assignats that signaled France’s traumatic

officially patented, and includes a plan of the man-

memories of financial terror. The links between

ufactory located on the third floor of the build-

wallpaper and currency are not so far-​fetched,

ing. The partners hoped to expand the space to

given that Anisson-​Dupéron had printed the first

include lower floors and secure street access on the

Jean-Démosthène Dugourc

99

Fig. 36 Caisse patriotique de Saint-​ Maixent, Billet de confiance for three sols with Boutin’s signature, 1790–93. Playing card with ink and stamps, 5.5 × 8.3 cm. GB526, Musée Carnavalet, Paris. Photo: Paris Musées.

rez-​de-​chaussée.90 Seeking to distinguish his new

than the Arabesques, evidenced by the numerous

enterprise from his previous activities, Dugourc

copies made of them. Moreover, their currency

issued an advertisement that informed “our fellow

as print was emphasized by the fact that playing

citizens that no wallpaper is produced or sold at

cards were used as substitute forms of local money

all in our manufactory of new Republican playing

and billets de confiance (notes of trust) in colonial

cards, rue Saint-​Nicaise.”

France, where both metallic money and paper



were scarce (fig. 36).

91

Prior to the Revolution, cards had served as

a stock subject matter for artists, from the vanitas



paintings of seventeenth-​century artists such as the

aim was simply to replace royal figures with the

Le Nain brothers to the meditative work of Jean-​

embodiments of revolutionary ideals, the playing

Baptiste-​Siméon Chardin, such as Boy Building a

cards had complex systems of meaning that once

House of Cards (1735). Besides vanitas, cards were

again recalled arabesques. Designed as a piquet

typically understood in the eighteenth century to

deck, Dugourc and Jaume’s set includes thirty-​two

stand for the hierarchy of the social orders, with

cards instead of the typical fifty-​two cards found

the whole deck invoking the totality of feudal

in a poker deck. There are slight variations among

society. Such a social understanding was clearly

the rare surviving sets. For example, each of the

what the government had in mind when it decreed

face cards from the earliest version of the deck,

that cards had to be entirely reformulated in order

dating to year II, bears an inscription at the bottom

to reflect the new principles of equality after the

that states “Dugourc, inv. l’an II de la République,

downfall of the monarchy. As a class of print,

par Brevet d’Invention.” By contrast, the face cards

the playing cards reached a far wider audience

in a hand-​colored set at the British Museum lack

92

100

Luxury After the terror

Even as Jaume and Dugourc insisted that their

his name as the inventor and are accompanied

in the masterful arrangement of figures, text, and

instead by a copy of a proposal for the constitution

ornaments found on each of the face cards, and the

of year III. As Thierry Depaulis notes, Dugourc

creation of a new cast of characters, who, in their

and Jaume’s pack was the first deck of cards to

doubled figurations, evoke the compositional

have been officially patented, transforming what

strategies found in the Arabesques. Deciphering

had been a somewhat generic signifier of social

each figure requires relying on the prospectus. The

order into a specific form of intellectual property

“geniuses” of the deck resemble classical gods, such

over which Dugourc and his partner sought autho-

as the winged “Genius of Spades, or of the Arts,”

rial control. The new laws on patenting inventions

who holds a lyre and a miniature Apollo Belvedere.

in 1791 replaced the previous system of privileges

The “Genius of Diamonds, or Commerce”

and titles that had been granted by the royal

resembles Mercury and holds a caduceus in one

administration. The variations in sets signaled the

hand and a bag of money in the other. While his

ways in which the cards could have multiple func-

pensive figure indicates his “profound specula-

tions, serving on the one hand as public advertise­

tions,” the portfolio, papers, and book at his feet

ments of Dugourc and Jaume’s claims over the

demonstrate “that confidence and fidelity are

rights to the design or forms of revolutionary

the primary foundations of commerce, just as

propaganda when accompanied by the constitu-

exchange is the means, and order creates secu-

tion. On the other hand, the ghost of Dugourc’s

rity.”93 Alongside the “Liberty of the Press” and

father looms in the background of this endeavor.

the “Liberty of Religion,” the appearance of the

For the patent indicates an attempt to seize autho-

“Liberty of Clubs, or Marriage” is surprising,

rial control in order to ensure that the legal battles

since she is shown wielding divorce papers in her

over the rights to invention that had once brought

hands. The device is intended, the authors assure

his father down would not do the same to him.

their fellow citizens, as an apotropaic “amulet,



that must ceaselessly remind spouses that their

Refiguring the family romance of the French

Revolution, the cards replaced the paternal kings,

fidelity must be mutual in order to be enduring.”94

maternal queens, and filial jacks of the traditional

The figures of Equality bear a remarkable specific-

deck with personifications of Genius, Liberty, and

ity, corresponding to new patriotic types that had

Equality. On the reverse side of the republican

emerged out of the Revolution. Though there are

cards stood the abstract diamond shape of the

no tricoteuses, the “Equality of Hearts, or Duties”

law formed from four joined fasces, which also

represents a member of the National Guard, while

replaced the aces in the deck. The woodcut designs

the “Equality of Clubs, or Rights” is a judge who

are intentionally coarse, a stylistic regression from

wears a costume similar to the designs that David

the fine etched lines of Dugourc’s earlier, more

had invented for members of the government.

accomplished engravings. The harsh bludgeon-​



like work of cutting across the grain of wood to

the “Equality of Diamonds, or Colors” and the

produce figures is found not only in his playing

“Equality of Spades, or Rank,” represented, respec-

cards but also in the woodcut letterhead designs

tively, by a liberated Black man and a sansculotte.

of this period. All the same, there is a refinement

The Equality of Diamonds goes one step further

By far the two most radical figures are

Jean-Démosthène Dugourc

101

than any abolitionist image of the period in figur-

to use a particular type of card stock with the

ing freedom, not as a freewheeling entanglement

fleur-​de-​lis, which served as a tax stamp allowing

of arabesque motifs but as an armed Black man

authorities to distinguish between duty-​paid cards

(plate 13). Calling to mind the Black Spartacus

and illegal examples. When tax regulations were

envisioned by the Abbé Raynal in Histoire des deux

lifted, remaining stocks of perfectly watermarked

Indes, this avenger of the New World is shown

paper continued to be used until 1800. Thus, one

unchained from the fetters of slavery and enjoys

found “perfectly republican playing cards, made

“the new Pleasure of being free and armed: on one

during year II, on this paper watermarked with the

side one sees a camp, and the other sugar cane,

fleur de lys.”97

and the word Courage finally avenges the Man of



Color from the scornful injustice of his oppres-

cards, the more the revolutionary manual of the

sors.”95 As a parallel allegory, the armed sansculotte

future comes undone by the plenitude of attributes

grips the muzzle of his musket with one sinewy

that surround each figure, and the didactic mes-

hand, while he points down at the crumbled

sages become so many slogans layered one upon

The more one looks at this pack of playing

remains of the “demolition of the Bastille,” chis-

another in a semiotic mesh of words that never

eled with the date August 10, 1792. The date of the

quite mean what they say.98 The same is true of

fall of the Bastille on July 14 has been collapsed

the letterhead designs created by Dugourc and his

with August 10, a maneuver that is not entirely

collaborator Duplat, which have a crowded quality,

explained in the prospectus.

as if the ancillary decorative elements are fighting



their way to occupy center stage and replace the

While the society augured by the republican

playing cards overturned the hierarchical order of

primary emblems, in a redeployment of arabesque

the royal deck, the cards relied on the composi-

squiggles meant to undo the purposiveness of rev-

tions of the past for their symbolic effect, much

olutionary iconography. Functioning as dialectical

like the propaganda prints of the period. Hence

objects rather than foolproof pieces of propaganda,

the adoption of seated figures recalls the former

Dugourc and Jaume’s cards embody the ways in

royalty found on playing cards, in order to evoke

which the visual culture of the ancien régime—full

“a mass equal to the Magots from the age of

of pleasure, play, frivolity, and risk—persisted, the

Charles VI, and one took care to preserve the same

material traces of the past serving as the physical

colors, in order to offer the same effects.” A num-

support for the serious work of the present.

96

ber of the decks had, in fact, been printed upon old card stock embossed with a fleur-​de-​lis pattern left over from the ancien régime. Though royal-

Cut Loose

ists used hidden rebuses and repurposed prints to

102

serve as secret counterrevolutionary calling cards,

After Dugourc’s forays into revolutionary paper-

the fleur-​de-​lis watermarks represent the last

work, his return to silk and his migration to Spain

ghostly traces of the ancien régime’s tax system.

to work for the Bourbons in 1800 places pressure

The monarchy had regulated gambling instru-

on understanding his revolutionary activities, and

ments and, since 1751, had required card makers

whether he indeed had but briefly dabbled in the

Luxury After the terror

politics of the period before ultimately wishing,

tent room, as well as the royal hamlet made for

in his words, “to only serve Bourbons.” Dugourc

Marie-​Antoinette at Versailles (fig. 37). Dugourc’s

99

had been working for the Spanish court from Paris

rustic pavilion resembles a wooden shack, com-

as early as 1786; he decided to move permanently

plete with log piles and a thatched roof, perhaps in

to Madrid following the death of his business

keeping with Charles IV’s love of rural life.104 It is

partner, the entrepreneur François-​Louis Godon.100

unlikely that such a half-​conceived structure was

His designs for silks and architectural follies in

ever built.105 Nonetheless, in a similar manner to

Spain pushed the more restrained decorations he

the dovecote that Pierre-​Adrien Pâris had recon-

had created during the ancien régime to greater

figured into a house for himself at Colmoulins,

extremes, incorporating Chinese and Egyptian

Dugourc’s fancy shack performs architectural

motifs alongside his trademark arabesque patterns,

subterfuge, betraying an anxiety about ornamental

as well as more elements of fantasy and colors;

ostentation in hiding columns, grotto-​like spaces,

in Spain, he sought to outdo the most extravagant

and an alcove bedroom behind a truly dilapidated

designs of the ancien régime. For example, it is

exterior.

hard to trace any kind of ostensibly revolution-



ary sensibility in the colorful arabesque silks he

out as neatly as the tightly woven and repeating

designed in Spain for Charles IV, which drew once

patterns of the silk panels that Dugourc was tasked

more upon the decorative motifs of the Loggia

with designing in Spain, so vibrant, so symmetri-

(plate 14).

cal, and so perfectly ordered. The Empire even-



tually caught up with the French designer, and,

101

Officially named a royal architect in charge

The loose ends of one’s life never quite work

of the palace at La Moncloa in 1802, Dugourc

eight years after he arrived in Madrid from Paris,

provided architectural designs to the Spanish king

Dugourc was followed by his compatriot Joseph

and his court, including the influential minister

Bonaparte, who deposed King Ferdinand VII in

Manuel Godoy, even though he had not been for-

a matter of months and placed himself on the

mally trained as an architect. Alongside creating

throne in 1808, backed by his brother Napoleon.

extravagant arabesque decorations for the king’s

The French emperor is the subject of an unusual

spaces, he sought through his architectural proj-

drawing by Dugourc; it shows him in alternat-

ects to resuscitate in rural Spain all of the grand

ing profiles, the youthful and idealized portrait

designs that had once populated ancien régime

haunted by the ghostly presence of an older and

Paris, as if the Revolution itself had never trans-

perhaps more accurate version of the Napoleon

pired. Three years after Dugourc arrived in Spain,

of that moment, his saggy profile registering the

Bélanger, in his typically sardonic way, wrote to the

effects of all the military campaigns that would not

furniture maker Jacob that “your former master

touch the perfectly repeating ornamental pattern

M. Dugourc, is resuscitated: he is the first archi-

figured below in a vertical foliage motif, a little bit

tect to the king of Spain and of the prince of the

of free beauty next to a face subject to the vicissi-

Peace.”103 One particularly ambitious proposal for

tudes of time (fig. 38).

a chalet at Aranjuez evokes many of the elements



that Bélanger had used at Bagatelle, including the

past had depended and the means through which

102

Paper was the medium upon which Dugourc’s

Jean-Démosthène Dugourc

103

Fig. 37 Jean-​Démosthène Dugourc, design for a chalet in Aranjuez, 1786–1803. Black ink, pencil and wash on paper mounted on blue card, 42 × 77 cm. Image courtesy of Drawing Matter.

104

he hoped to secure a lucrative future. A large pre-

and helped to propagate during his early suc-

sentation drawing from 1808 attests to the ways

cesses with Bélanger in a range of materials, from

he sought to once more use his skills as a drafts-

silk panels and furnishings to delicate gilt-​bronze

man to save himself from exile and to adapt once

mounts for precious hardstone objects. The central

again to the shifting political allegiances brought

vertical section in the drawing shows a seated

about in the wake of the Revolution (plate 15).

female figure who plants her feet upon a globe that

Among the largest of Dugourc’s surviving draw-

shows the African continent; she sits between two

ings, the image’s exact function is unclear,

male attendants, one with butterfly wings and the

although it is accompanied by a small slip of paper

other wearing a crown of wheat.106 Several of the

that reads, “this sheet was begun in Paris in 1787

grotesque motifs recall the plates from Arabesques,

and completed in Madrid in 1808 by J. Démost.

which drew from the Vatican Loggia, while the

Dugourg architecte du Roi Joseph Napoléon.”

exotic and fantastical beasts interspersed through-

A sort of memory palace, the composition com-

out the design include camels, elephants, unicorns,

bines many of the motifs associated with the goût

and squirrels—animals that would reappear in

étrusque style that the designer had pioneered

Dugourc’s illustrations for Les animaux savants,

Luxury After the terror

Fig. 38 Jean-​Démosthène Dugourc, Napoleon Bonaparte at the Champ de Mai, ca. 1815. Graphite on light blue paper, 30.3 × 22.1 cm. Bequest of Harry G. Sperling, 1971, 1975.131.108. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Photo: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

published in 1816. The panel is set into a frame



decorated with black and terracotta cartouches

panels of woven silk that Dugourc designed for

evocative of Greek vase paintings, separated from

Pernon on behalf of the Spanish court, it does not

two outer bands of Egyptian-​style decoration in

correspond to a specific commission or known

a gray wash. At the bottom half of the composi-

royal project. As evidence of this, we need only

tion, a Roman tetrastyle temple contains a statue

glimpse at the structure located in the center,

of Cybele. The inscription on the outer walls of

emblazoned with the artist’s name and profes-

the temple reads, “j. démost. dugourc archi-

sion within the frieze of the temple dedicated to

tect inv. del.” The cornice of the inner structure

the Great Mother. Even if indeed, following the

contains the dates of the drawing’s commencement

hypothesis put forward by te Rijdt, the drawing

in Paris in the year of 1787 and of its completion in

served as “a sample of archeological motifs allow-

Madrid in 1808.

ing the artist to demonstrate all of his savoir-​faire,”

While the drawing’s format recalls the long

Jean-Démosthène Dugourc

105

it does not tell us why it took Dugourc nearly

Stylistically, the heavily controlled composition

twenty years to finish this drawing, nor the practi-

evokes the kind of images Dugourc would make

cal matter of why he chose to make an “advertising

for the Bourbons during the Restoration, after he

card” in such a large format.107 On another level,

returned to Paris from Madrid in 1813, drawing

it raises the question of why a draftsman who had

the funeral procession for Louis XVI and taking

been employed by countless other artisans and

charge of designing the lavish silk brocades for the

architects, chief among them Bélanger, decided to

throne of the Palais des Tuileries in 1819 but never

chisel his name as an architect within the edifice of

quite managing to find a solid position under the

his design.

Restoration.109 The conservative, somber quality of



the drawing is picked up in the strange sepia tones

What kinds of representational anxieties were

at work in 1808 in Madrid for one of the most

and muted shades, which create the effects of a

prolific designers of ancien régime Paris, who

reproductive print more than an original drawing

would be remembered a century later for his works

and look forward to the cinematic strategies of

on paper and as the radical printmaker of repub-

using muted tones in film in order to signal a flash-

lican playing cards? The strangest aspect of the

back to the past. Instead of signing his name on the

drawing is the way in which Dugourc drew himself

outer margins, outside the mimetic framework of

into a tomb, the carefree and loose footwork of

the drawing, as was typical of eighteenth-​century

earlier arabesque patterns turned into coffers and

drawing conventions, he chose to sign his name

containers and caskets, set one into the other in an

inside, in the sanctum sanctorum of the center of

interlocking and inescapable system as conserva-

the composition. Significant indeed is the temple

tive and funereal as the Egyptian motifs found

at the heart of the drawing, where Dugourc has

in the outermost edges of the drawing. Gone were

chosen to leave his name chiseled on the surface of

the ambiguous fantasies of the past, the fugitive

a sanctuary dedicated to the Great Mother, whose

designs with openings and closings in between the

death called him back from Rome and cut him off

threads that had allowed for the traffic between

from the true knowledge of antiquity, but whose

politics and pleasure. Instead, the design was so

absence shaped the arabesque fantasies that arose

tightly woven that no gaps could be left behind.

from the designer’s sleight of hand.

108

106

Luxury After the terror

S

hortly after Louis XVI was guillotined on January 21, 1793, prints, pamphlets, and letters sought to capture the remarkable

spectacle that had transpired at the Place de la Révolution. While the severing of the king’s head was meant to be the final act that would liberate the Revolution’s body politic from the despotic past, witnesses appeared divided on exactly what they had encountered. The executioner, Charles-​

Chapter 4

Aubert-​Henri-​Joseph Parent Carving in Exile

Henri Sanson, felt compelled to weigh in on the final moments of the king in order to put the rumors to rest (see fig. 1). He described the former monarch’s descent from the carriage and how, after initial protests, Louis XVI removed his jacket and held out his hands to be bound with rope. Against the loud sound of the drumroll, “he climbed onto the scaffold and sought to move to the front as though wishing to speak. But it was pointed out to him that this, too, was impossible. So he allowed himself to be led to the place where he was bound, and where he shouted very loudly, People, I die innocent. Then, turning towards us, he said: Gentlemen, I am innocent of every charge laid against me. I hope that my blood may seal the happiness of the French people. Those, citizen, were his true and final words.”1

More than the executioner himself, the guillo-

tine was the other great protagonist on the morning of the king’s death. Nothing more than “a horizontal plane some feet above the ground on which have been erected two perpendiculars separated by a right-​angled triangle falling through a circle onto a sphere which is subsequently isolated by a cutter,” the guillotine’s ruthless and impersonal efficiency made it an exemplary instrument of the Terror (fig. 39).2 While most eyes were trained upon the once mystical figure of the king, others marveled at the machine that had separated Louis

Fig. 39 Hercy, Robespierre guillotinant le boureau après avoir fait guillot.r tous les Français . . . cy gyt toute la France, 1794. Burin engraving, 23.5 × 15 cm. Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris. Photo: BnF.

108

XVI’s head from his body, as if he were no different

Pinel turned his attention from the emotional loss

from any of the other victims who had come before

of the king to the instrument that had brought him

him. Among the crowd that day stood a young

death: “Louis was bound to the fatal plank of what

Philippe Pinel, who described the event in a letter

is called the guillotine, and his head was cut off

to his brother. After writing of a “heart heavy with

before he hardly had time to suffer, which is at least

sorrow, in a stupor of profound consternation,”

one advantage of this murderous machine that

Luxury After the terror

bears the name of the physician who invented it.”3

that the architect Pierre-​Adrien Pâris proposed to

In Laure Murat’s provocative account, the guillo-

the Bourbon court in exile while he himself was

tine and the spectacle of the king’s death together

hiding in Normandy (fig. 40). Pâris’s centralized,

led to modern medical understandings of madness

tiered structure was crowned by a crucifix at the

and the self as a divided subject. She reminds us

top; a monument of monstrous proportions, its

that, while Pinel may have been an anonymous

ostensible religious iconography consciously chal-

spectator at the Place de la Révolution that day,

lenged the secularization of the Pantheon achieved

he later became the founder of French psychiatry.4

under the directives of Quatremère de Quincy.

The mechanics and visual effects of the guillotine

The wrathfully large dome (which would have

provoked new medical understandings of “losing

taken years to complete) sought to architectoni-

one’s head” in the nineteenth century. It also made

cally compensate for the dismembered and lost

the more immediate task of commemorating the

body of the king, which had been swiftly buried

king particularly difficult, if not impossible, in the

in the mass grave of the Madeleine Cemetery and

postrevolutionary period.

covered with quicklime to prevent any attempts at



How the specter of the king’s death figured

disinterment and recuperation. Rejected in favor

in the execution of luxury during the postrevo-

of a more modest expiatory chapel completed by

lutionary period is the subject of this chapter,

the architect Pierre-​François-​Léonard Fontaine

which focuses on a small carved medallion by the

under Charles X, Pâris’s phantasmagorical project

French sculptor-​architect Aubert-​Henri-​Joseph

demonstrates how a divided collective memory

Parent. Produced in 1795, two years after the

made Bourbon monuments nearly unbuildable.5

king’s death, the relief features a profile portrait of



Louis XVI on a medallion carved from limewood,

Parent’s small commemorative object was of a

which was Parent’s specialty in Paris before he

private nature and, unusually, relied on the use of

moved to Switzerland and Germany during the

wood. Parent’s carving, however small, requires a

Terror. The medallion is dedicated to Franziska

slow and deliberate process of viewing in opposi-

von Hohenheim, making the appearance of the

tion to the radical instantaneity represented by the

dead king’s portrait puzzling, given that she did

guillotine. This is the case when considering the

not have particularly close ties to the French

poem written on the verso of the medallion by the

monarch. One might initially classify the carv-

Swiss Protestant preacher Johann Caspar Lavater,

ing as part of the royalist imagery that circulated

who introduced Parent to his many contacts in

after his execution. Haunting silhouette portraits

Switzerland. Just as the pages of the Kabinet van

depicted the king as a ghostly spectral presence

mode en Smaak viewed a Sèvres cup and saucer

alongside weeping figures who did the demonstra-

as the remnants of a lost world of royal splendor,

tive work of mourning for a public that could not

the small and unassuming limewood sculpture

openly express loss for fear of political retribu-

turned the carved image of the king into a political

tion. More ambitious attempts to commemorate

devotional object. Carving Louis XVI as a sub-

the king took place clandestinely, such as the

ject could only legitimately take place within

architectural project for a monument to the king

the conditions of exile, since it would have been

At the opposite end of the material spectrum,

Aubert-Henri-Joseph Parent

109

Fig. 40 Pierre-​Adrien Pâris, second project for a monument dedicated to the memory of Louis XVI, ca. 1818–19. Ink and wash, 49.5 × 43.5 cm. Bibliothèque municipale de Besançon, Fonds Paris, vol. 484, no. 117. Photo: Bibliothèque municipale de Besançon.

dangerous to mourn the king in France even as

had been recognized primarily for its com-

the Thermidorian Reaction ostensibly brought the

mercial uses in the context of luxury, was trans-

Terror to an end. Still identifying as a royal subject

formed in his exile into an instrument of political

of the crown after the monarch’s death, Parent in

commemoration.

his professional trajectory reveals the transformations that took place in artisanal practice in exile. Before the Revolution, he had attempted to

Flowers for the King

navigate the hierarchical world of the royal acad-

110

emies without much success. Carved genre scenes

Christian symbols of metamorphosis and resur-

made for the commercial market were classified

rection, aspects that later became characteristic of

on a lower aesthetic tier than marble statuaries or

royalist imagery during the Bourbon Restoration,

history paintings. Parent’s wood carving, which

can be detected in Parent’s carving, which at first

Luxury After the terror

glance appears purely decorative (plate 16). A pro-

volatile circumstances made both being religious

file portrait of Louis XVI set into a medallion sur-

and royal treasonous activities under the French

rounded by the Latin inscription lud[ovicus] xvi

revolutionary government, even after the end of

occidit 21 J 1793 (Louis XVI killed on January 21,

the Terror.

1793) rests above a miniaturized cylindrical casket



held up by scrolled volute legs. The long side of

form of propaganda prints aimed at countering

the casket is inscribed with the Latin words Mors

revolutionary images, the untimely slowness of

immortalitas, a reference to Lucretius’s descrip-

carving a sculpture in wood represents an unusual

tion of the immortality of death and eternal

method of artistic production, one that was,

change in De rerum natura, a line that Karl Marx

moreover, rarely found in the academic salons

would resuscitate in a different context in an early

of cosmopolitan Paris. Largely neglected as a

critique of capital.6 Beneath the casket is a sacri-

sculptural medium during the neoclassical period,

ficial Christian lamb suggesting the innocence of

the language of wood carving was more com-

the Bourbon king, while the theme of resurrec-

monly associated with the furniture and interior

tion can be found in the butterfly triumphantly

decoration that joiners, cabinetmakers, and carvers

emerging from its chrysalis and about to take flight

executed on behalf of the Garde-​Meuble de la

at the top of the composition. Below the lamb are

Couronne, such as Georges Jacob, who supplied

the coats of arms of Franziska von Hohenheim, the

exquisitely carved pieces of furniture to the French

duchess of Württemberg, to whom the object was

court and worked with Dugourc, whom we saw in

dedicated, as indicated in the inscription found

the previous chapter. In contrast to sturdier forms

on the ebonized frame. Her name is once again

of wood, such as walnut, beech, and later mahog-

mentioned on the reverse side of the panel, which

any typically used by Jacob and other joiners in the

includes Lavater’s poem, “On the coffin of Louis,

furnishings of the period, Parent’s characteristic

the murdered victim,” to which I will return later

use of limewood allows us to position him within

in this chapter. The high-​relief carving of the

a longer genealogy of carvers, beginning with the

Bourbon lily stalk and the rose symbolizing Marie-​

extraordinary pre-​Reformation sculptors who

Antoinette daringly jut out from the surface and

were the subject of Michael Baxandall’s book

loom incongruously large above the medallion

The Limewood Sculptors of Renaissance Germany.

and miniaturized tomb. In contrast to these, one



can detect, when seen closely and in raking light,

under the genus of Tilia, is a light hardwood

the spectral presence of the Bourbon fleur-​de-​lis

traditionally used in Europe as a decorative carv-

decorating the short side of the coffin; the same

ing material. Typically unsuited for carpentry or

fine chiseling is used to carve the word Tigurina,

the structural forms of furnishings because of its

the Latin word for Zurich, below the artist’s more

unstable nature, limewood has a complex internal

deeply carved signature and the date of 1795 on the

structure. Although it is a light hardwood that

base of the monument. Such ample use of religious

the Renaissance theorist Leon Battista Alberti

and royalist symbolism might strike us today as

described as “tractable,” the ease with which

being rather overdetermined. However, politically

the carver can work across the grain in multiple

Given that royalist images circulated in the

Limewood, or linden wood, also known

Aubert-Henri-Joseph Parent

111

directions with little resistance also makes it vulnerable to the pressures of uneven shrinkage and splitting.7 Working with this paradoxically soft hardwood requires the development of manual dexterity and an experience of reading the shapes of the wood beforehand in what Baxandall, borrowing from the Renaissance natural philosopher Paracelsus’s terminology, described as a kind of chiromancy, a “reading of the lines of disposition and experience on any natural object by means rather similar to that of reading the lines on a hand.”8 Looking at wood sculpture entails a different process, too. Limewood carving is sensitive to the play of light and shadow and, as such, demands that the viewer also practice a kind of chiromancy in order to grasp what Baxandall terms the “accumulative sensation” that arises in the process of viewing a sculpture, which enables the viewer to see the carved surface of patterns as “consisting in an intricate act of serial perception by ourselves rather than in a wooden artefact, as a process and not a thing.”9

Certainly, Parent is separated by a temporal,

cultural, and geographical gulf from the carving methods and collective cultural practices that flourished in Renaissance Germany among the limewood sculptors studied by Baxandall. In some

Fig. 41 Tilman Riemenschneider, seated bishop, ca. 1495. Limewood and gray-​black stain, 90.2 × 35.6 × 14.9 cm. The Cloisters Collection, 1970, 1970.137.1. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Photo: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

ways, the French carver shares more in common with the seventeenth-​century Anglo-​Dutch limewood sculptor Grinling Gibbons, who gained

projects, as Gibbons did, the Louis XVI panel

prominence by carving remarkable architec-

demonstrates that religious themes could be found

tural ornaments at Hampton Court Palace.10

hidden amid the floral motifs in which he special-

Importantly, much like earlier sculptors, Parent

ized. Something about the experience of viewing

left his wood unpainted, a treatment that both

Parent’s work is comparable to the phenomeno-

drew attention to his skill and created a resistance

logical modes of beholding that Baxandall claimed

to the mimetic and lifelike temptations of poly-

were necessary to grasping the accumulative

chrome sculpture (fig. 41). While he probably

sensation of a limewood sculpture by artists such

undertook a number of secular, decorative carving

as Tilman Riemenschneider.

11

112

Luxury After the terror



The small medallion offers but a partial

recent coronation at Reims is just visible, drawing

glimpse into the technical mastery and artistic

the eye back into an illusionistic depth at the same

talents of Parent, who began his career in the

time that it brings attention to the patterns formed

hope of becoming a royal artist. He was born on

by the grain of the wood. To the right of the floral

December 13, 1753, in Cambrai, a town in northern

basket, Parent carved trophies and war spoils.

France close to the Belgian border, into a fam-

Already in this early work, the hallmarks of his

ily of noble lineage that could be traced back to

style are detectable in the modulation of the relief

Pierre Parent, a secretary of state to Louis XI in the

in order to depict successive moments in time and

fifteenth century. Antoine-​François Saint-​Aubert,

to create a heightened sense of illusion, as well as

a Cambrai painter of fantastical genre scenes,

the exploitation of the carved frame. Composed

trained him early on in painting, though Parent

somewhat awkwardly, the text begins at the top

claimed to have taught himself how to carve.13

left corner of the frame and reads: “great king of

By the age of twenty-​four, he was working for the

your subjects and the love and the father /

local nobility, and in 1777, the city of Valenciennes

whom the frenchman adores and the for-

asked him to create a carving to celebrate the

eigner dreams of / when i erect a trophy to

arrival of Louis XVI, who was visiting the city on

the rarest virtues / my art traces louis and

the hundredth anniversary of its incorporation

recalls titus.”

into the kingdom of France (plate 17).





allowed for the demonstration of Parent’s multiple

12

Parent’s carving must have struck a chord

This flattering piece of royal propaganda

with the young king, who had a predilection for

talents as a carver of both sculptural and structural

tinkering with lathes and locks in his workshop

surfaces, as a virtuoso who could both provide

at Versailles under the watchful tutelage of the

the work of art and furnish the frame that would

locksmith François Gamain, whom we encoun-

embellish and heighten the dramatic effects of

tered in chapter 2.14 Louis XVI had only ascended

the relief it contained. In attacking his panels and

to the throne in 1774 and hopes remained high

frames from multiple angles, the sculptor asks the

for the new French king and his wife. Parent’s

eyes of the viewer to do the same. The way the text

large and exuberant relief depicts roses, lilies,

circles around the panel suggests that the viewer,

poppies, anemones, jasmine, sunflowers, morning

like the carver, should perform acrobatic feats in

glories, scabious, and periwinkle, arranged inside

order to turn the enormous wooden panel and

an openwork basket placed atop a small plinth

read the entire message. As awkwardly composed

decorated by fleur-​de-​lis and a central medallion

as the text is, Parent’s words demonstrate the ways

portraying the youthful countenance of Louis XVI

in which provincial cities such as Valenciennes

set between two cornucopias. To the left, a small

expressed their devotion to the king in terms of

domestic scene of avian affection unfolds as a

paternal affection and filial duty, even as the art-

mother bird sits on the plinth feeding her just-​

ist sought to show his erudition by referencing a

hatched brood while the father bird, carved in

classical figure of authority like the ancient Roman

shallower relief, flies at a transverse angle. In the

emperor Titus. The carving was an immediate suc-

distance, a pyramid commemorating Louis XVI’s

cess. The piece was hung in the lower-​level dining

Aubert-Henri-Joseph Parent

113

room at Versailles and won the young artist a gift

marquis de Turpin, the piece and a pendant panel

of 1,200 livres from the royal crown, an award that

dedicated to the theme of friendship were said

was accompanied by a letter inviting the artist to

to have delighted visitors “by the delicateness of

study in Paris.15 The carving was one of the few

the work and the veracity of the attitudes.”20 The

objects left untouched during the October days of

heightened sense of naturalism with which he

1789.

16

carved his tender scenes attracted viewers. Unlike

While the study of neoclassical sculpture

stolid marble busts placed securely on plinths



tends to be limited to executions in terracotta,

and pedestals, Parent’s vertically positioned wood

plaster, or marble, there was also a penchant for

carvings evoked a sense of wonder by achieving

less monumental media, favored by the provincial

highly recessed and deeply excavated surfaces that

nobility who composed Parent’s primary patronage

brought the world of nature alive.

base. His early success gained from this carving



enabled him to move to Paris in 1779, where he

set his sights on Catherine the Great, who had

became a pensionnaire of the Royal Academy of

sent her estranged son Paul and his wife, the grand

painting and sculpture as a student of Étienne-​

duchess Maria Feodorovna, to visit Paris in 1783

Pierre-​Adrien Gois, who specialized in religious

on a diplomatic mission following the War of the

and allegorical statuary in marble. Although the

Bavarian Succession.21 Like Dugourc, who created

comte d’Angiviller had granted him a pension

a number of designs for the grand duke in 1784,

of 600 livres a year, he was not the most diligent

Parent had evidently hoped to secure Russian

pupil, lured instead by the fame and money to be

patronage by selling a carving listed in the pam-

made on the private art market. The same year he

phlet of the Salon de la Correspondance of 1783

began at the Academy, Parent displayed works at

as “The portrait of H. M. Catherine II, empress of

the Salon de la Correspondance, the controversial

Russia, carried by the imperial eagle holding in its

commercial exhibition established in 1779 by Pahin

talons the scepter and the globe. In the lower part,

de la Blancherie, who was pejoratively described

where branches of flowers cross over each other,

as “an unrelentingly mercantile host who affected

is posed a bird’s nest with nestlings; their mother

the trappings of nobility.” He became known for

covers them with her wings and feeds them with

carving pathetic genre scenes of dead mother birds

her beak, symbol of the benefits and maternal

with their fledglings in nests from single pieces of

tenderness of the empress for her subjects.”22 One

wood. At the distinctly nonacademic salon, such

can see Parent replaying the motifs of naturalism

carvings would have been displayed next to paint-

in the service of monarchical authority that he

ings and sculptures as well as curiosities, natural

had earlier utilized in his panel for Louis XVI, yet

history specimens, and “freaks of nature,” such

in a much higher relief panel, which leads to the

as a two-​headed calf, putting the fine arts status

suspicion that a number of the pieces were glued

17

18

of his works into question. This did not deter

on rather than carved from the same block. The

Parent from submitting works to the Salon again

Russian couple did not purchase the piece, leaving

in 1780, including a small scene of baby birds in

Parent devastated. Nonetheless, we can see the

a nest being fed by a mother bird. Created for the

sculptor pushing the limits of a decorative medium

19

114

Not content with minor patrons alone, Parent

Luxury After the terror

to an allegorical language, perhaps not entirely

He wrote to Jean-​Jacques Lagrenée, the director

understood or appreciated by the sovereign powers

of the Academy in Rome, that the only support he

whom he so desperately sought to court.

could offer the delinquent artist was a return fare to Paris. As the coup de grâce, in a separate letter the director chastised Parent for having used his royal pension to make a profit instead of further-

Errant Subjects

ing his own education. Had he used his funding Rome and antiquity beckoned to all of the young

properly toward his studies, he would not have

artists toiling in ancien régime Paris, and Parent

found himself “in the same city, after having been

heeded the call, going straight to Italy without

dragged around like an errant subject, without

telling the comte d’Angiviller. He secretly trav-

shame, and whose talents, too little matured

eled to Florence and then Rome, in search of

by proper studies, interrupted perhaps forever

private patrons. With little in the way of resources,

your career.”26 D’Angiviller’s comments were not

he wrote a letter of contrition in the summer

completely unfounded. Parent’s first académies,

of 1783 to the comte from Florence, imploring

or anatomical studies, made in Florence and Rome

the powerful director for financial assistance.

in 1783 suggest he could indeed have used a little

Parent wrote of his devastation: “Not knowing

more training in mastering the figure, one of the

what would become of me, little by little I made

key exercises that distinguished academic artists

my way to Italy in order to escape from the misfor-

from their artisanal counterparts. In one example,

tunes that beset me. . . . That is why I sought shelter

Parent depicted what appears to be a blacksmith

in the sanctuary of the arts that is Rome.” While

at the forge with disheveled hair (fig. 42). His

he was in Florence in 1784, he likely encountered

hunched torso inelegantly terminates in a lumpy

Gibbons’s masterpiece carving for the Medici at

pair of buttocks that resemble a sack of pota-

the Palazzo Pitti, which possibly inspired his own

toes more than taut, muscular masses. The word

carvings, all the while attempting to secure a mod-

“Rome” is visible in between his legs.

est “gratification” from the grand duke of Tuscany



before traveling onward to Rome, “without sup-

without the disciplinary tools of the academy

port, without protection, continuing to go to the

shaped and delimited Parent’s career, in a manner

Académie de France every day.” He wrote once

similar to that of Dugourc. While his clandestine

again to d’Angiviller, this time from Rome, hoping

journey to Italy and his unrealistic demands of

to use the money that had been reserved for his

d’Angiviller effectively foreclosed the possibility

studies in Paris to stay for a year in Rome and

of a royal career, this did not prevent him from

learn how to sculpt marble. Given the difficulty

using his trip to Rome to lay claim to an extensive

of winning a spot at the Académie de France in

knowledge of antiquity. The classical turn in his

Rome, d’Angiviller was none too pleased with

work is suggested by a red chalk drawing of a lav-

Parent’s request, primarily because the sculptor

ish urn (plate 18). Placed in an outdoor landscape,

had neglected his studies in favor of attempt-

the wide urn features a female bust in the center

ing to make money on the private art market.

wearing an Egyptian headdress and sprouting

23

24

25

This brief glimpse of antiquity in the flesh

Aubert-Henri-Joseph Parent

115

nest with eggs, the fruits of their labors of love. The image is probably a preparatory study for a carved relief panel, although the executed piece has not been found. At the bottom of the composition, Parent wrote in ink, “Bas relief d’après antique à Rome en 1784 Aubert Parent fec,” suggesting that the drawing was based on an architectural fragment he saw in Rome.

The drawing reveals the ways in which Parent

composed in terms of surface depth rather than outline and contours, in contrast to the architects and sculptors who trained at the Academy. Large passages of red chalk are reserved for the edges and underside of the vessel, leaving unmarked parts of paper in the central bust on the vessel and in the surrounding background area. The shaded parts are the most heavily modeled and worked surfaces, while the blank spots on the sheet correspond to the uncarved “background” of the panel. Faint hatch marks traced on the pedestal tableau set off the putti from the excavated background. Fig. 42 Aubert-​Henri-​Joseph Parent, study of a nude seen from behind, 1783. Pen and brown and black ink with wash and watercolor on paper, 28.7 × 18.6 cm. Musée des Beaux-​arts de Valenciennes. Photo © Coll. Musée des Beaux-​arts de Valenciennes, cliché Régis Decottignies.

The sensitivity to the nuance of carved heights and the effects of light hitting the surface of an opaque body is indicated in the central figure on the vessel. One other aspect of his work process becomes evident as well, namely the time it took to think through designs and map them out on paper before executing them in wood. Unlike artisans

wings, surrounded by an abundance of foliage and fruit. The finely curved vessel terminates in a pair of rings dangling from the noses of two satyrs at either end. On the supporting plinth below, a putto playfully offers his companion some fruit through the mouth of his mask. Draped around the vessel and support are the intertwining stems of a rose and lilac, flowers especially favored by Parent. Two birds flirt delicately upon the left side of the branch, counterbalanced on the other side by a

116

Luxury After the terror

who consulted albums and punctured drawings in order to transfer designs onto executed pieces of furniture or decoration, oftentimes destroying the documentation in the process, Parent clearly thought of his carvings as works of art that merited highly finished drawings, to the degree that he felt the need to sign and date the paper.

After a second trip to Rome, Parent published

a set of prints of staircases, clocks, furniture, and vases, suggesting that he sought to establish a

commercial market for his designs. Among the engravings from 1788–89 are six plates of funerary vases, once again shown placed on large pedestals, suggesting that these were invented compositions inspired by rather than directly observed in Rome (fig. 43). These are, in fact, purely fantasy compositions that combined Parent’s talents for carving flora with classicizing motifs he had picked up but had not completely mastered. Throughout the ornament prints and his drawings, Parent’s renderings have an undeveloped quality that distinguishes them from the more sophisticated courtly compositions of Dugourc and the studious and academically informed work of an architect like Pâris. It is as if Parent, true to d’Angiviller’s words, had never quite managed to receive a proper education that would have erased the parochial signs of his early training as an artisanal worker of wood and allowed him to obtain a distinguished position at the Academy. In technical terms, the plates also show abrupt shifts in scale and an inconsistent use of perspective, which would indicate that he hardly understood the rudiments of drawing, let alone the classical themes he had studied in Rome. The

Fig. 43 Aubert-​Henri-​Joseph Parent, Vase composé, posé sur un autel antique, plate 4 from Cahier de Vases, 1788–89. Engraving and etching, 39.3 × 28.5 × 1.4 cm. Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 51.540.8 (1-34). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Photo: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

defects in composition, perspective, and rendering that are so apparent in the connoisseurial milieu of engravings and drawings are mitigated once

work after 1792, but not in the tumultuous world of

the forms have been translated into wood. The

sansculotte Paris.

language of perspective changes when shadows and solids are read as serial forms of surface that depend so heavily upon the changing position of

A Bit of Shaped Wood

light and shadow, as the viewer moves around the sculpted plane. One could say that Parent stub-

Was Parent a true royalist? The question of

bornly held onto his pride as a self-​taught carver

“authentic” and fixed political positions has

who knew his material better than any sculptor

appeared more than once in the course of this

in marble could teach him. While he may never

book. We have seen the Janus-​faced nature of other

have reentered the good graces of d’Angiviller,

artisans, such as the goldsmith Auguste or the

he managed to find an alternative audience for his

designer Dugourc, who enjoyed more prestigious

Aubert-Henri-Joseph Parent

117

positions working for the French court, abruptly

described as an allegory of the constitution of 1791,

shifting their alliances with the change in regime.

also features a bouquet of flowers but without the

Parent’s strong identification with the image and

heavily classicizing motifs found in the earlier

prestige of the monarchy, despite his lack of direct

panel (fig. 44). In lieu of the high pedestal with

relationship to the court, thus appears aberrant,

putti, Parent has carved in illusionistic high relief

almost a mistaken career move on the part of a

a shelf that supports the vase containing sunflow-

provincial artist. Parent would have lacked the

ers, carnations, ranunculus, roses, convolvulus,

access to the inner circles of elite society enjoyed

and jasmine, as well as a dead bird and a nest filled

by Dugourc and Bélanger. Perhaps it was this

with unhatched eggs. Most daring of all are the

distanced perspective that allowed him to main-

two medallions on chains that teeter precipitously

tain an abiding faith in the authority of the crown,

off the shelf, with one shown in a three-​quarter

even as he sought to tailor his carvings to the new

profile and the other placed frontally. The upper

political climate and aesthetic atmosphere of revo-

one depicts the personification of Rome and is

lutionary France.

inscribed with the letters S and C (for senatus con-



sultum); the lower medallion contains the portrait

At turns decorative and symbolic, Parent’s

wood carvings could hold multiple political

of Hadrian encircled by the words “Imperator

realities together, at least before the journée of

Caesar Trajanus Hadrianus.”29 These two coins

August 10, which marked the official end of the

have been positioned close to the bird’s nest, which

monarchy. This is suggested in a pair of allegorical

is placed precariously at the far edge of the shelf

relief panels, carved in 1789 and 1791. The panel

and pitches forward toward the viewer.

from 1789 has been described as an allegory of



mortality. A vase of flowers is perched upon a

Parent had previously sought to tailor his carv-

high pedestal with a small genre scene of a bird

ings to the political powers of his age—from

attacking a snake in the left foreground, presum-

Louis XVI to Catherine the Great—and it is not

ably protecting the brood of nestlings located

surprising to see him once again seeking to push

to the right of the block. An arsenal of flora has

the formal possibilities of wood carving to shape

been carved, with lilies, poppies, tuberose, roses,

allegories of the political events unfolding in

ranunculus, and tulips snaking their way out of the

revolutionary France. In such an interpretation,

vase and off the panel in high relief. Reminiscent

the two coins dangling from the chain in the 1791

of Dutch floral paintings, such an exotic bou-

panel could be viewed as a commentary on the

quet could not have been found in nature, given

constitution drafted by the National Assembly and

the varying seasons in which each flower was in

ratified by Louis XVI on September 13 that same

bloom. Once again, Parent can be seen show-

year.30 The assumption is that any informed viewer

ing off his knowledge of classical subject mat-

seeing this panel in Paris would have immediately

ter. The vase carved in low relief resembles his

recognized the twinned images of an enlightened

published vase compositions and contains a well-​

emperor with the city of Rome as a picture of hope,

known image from Herculaneum of a grasshopper

a “moment of balance when the Monarchiens still

in a cart pulled by a pigeon. The second panel,

hoped that a reformed and constitutional France

27

28

118

Luxury After the terror

Bouquets too could express a political will.

Fig. 44 Aubert-​Henri-​Joseph Parent, carved relief with allegory of the constitution, 1791. Limewood, 58.7 × 39.7 × 5.7 cm. Getty Museum, Los Angeles, 84.SD.194. Digital image courtesy of the Getty’s Open Content Program.

could be governed by the decrees of a French sen-

Greuze’s paintings of girls and dead birds made

ate, linked by the new constitution to an enlight-

such subjects familiar fodder for the picturing

ened Louis XVI.” Anne-​Marie Kerneis has argued

of sentiment.32 Unlike Parent’s compositions,

that one can detect a significant shift in Parent’s

Démontreuil’s still-​life carvings were extremely

subject matter starting in 1792, the year he went into

sparse. Cutting out all classical flourishes and

exile in Switzerland. Correspondingly, sad scenes of

references in the form of statuary and fragments,

dead birds hanging by their tails replace exuberant

the wood-​carver focused instead on his dead avian

flowers. However, this was evidently in response

subjects, carved with incredible life-​like details, par-

to the arrival of competition. Beginning in 1791,

ticularly in the fine splinters that create the effects

the limewood sculptor Jean Démontreuil began

of the plumage (fig. 45). In 1793, two pieces he

displaying his pathos-​laden carvings of dead birds

displayed at the Salon were prosaically described as

and empty nests at the public salon. Jean-​Baptiste

a framed picture of “a dead bird and its pendant.”33

31

Aubert-Henri-Joseph Parent

119

Fig. 45 Jean Démontreuil, still life of dead bird, ca. 1795. Carved limewood, 34.5 × 27.8 cm. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, KK6694. Photo: KHM-​Museumsverband.



Yet even as specialists of floral painting such

as Gérard van Spaendonck channeled the newly

overnight. Given the sudden and dramatic politi-

moralizing visions of nature to elevate a low

cal reversals of the period, it is risky to interpret

genre of painting to lofty and patriotic heights,

Parent’s allegories as commentaries on a specific

Parent’s carvings of flora and fauna resist a one-​

political event. For example, even if we recognize

dimensional reading. Allegories rely on a stable

that his carving at the Getty was made in 1791,

framework of shared meaning and interpretation,

its potential significance would change dramati-

so that viewers can grasp the relationship between

cally depending on whether it was carved and

two objects or figures that have no ostensible con-

displayed before or after the royal family’s failed

nection to what they signify. They work on the

flight to Varennes on June 20, which foreclosed

34

35

120

assumption that the world will not be abolished

Luxury After the terror

any hope for a constitutional monarchy in France,

and to visually process. The untreated material

although Louis Capet remained the titular king.

elicited an optical traction and a gestation within

The arrangement of objects on the low shelf of

the opaque layers so that the meaning of the

the carving, which contains not only the ancient

worked surface has to be extracted.

coins with references to Rome (and profiles seen in



earlier works of Parent) but an already dead bird

had to be reframed in light of the king’s death.

unable to protect its unborn brood teetering at the

This is demonstrated in the case of a floral panel

edge, could just as easily be read as a pronounce-

dating to 1784 (plate 19). Once again, he depicts a

ment of an already lost cause.

floral still life in a classicizing landscape, this time



accompanied by the inscription aubert parent

Parent’s carvings did not change stylistically

The sculptor himself recognized that his works

in reaction to the political events of the period,

eques ro. inv. sclpt. roma an 1784 incised in

but the viewers themselves had. Lacking the clar-

serif script at the bottom of the piece. At one point,

ity of the geometrically arranged bodies found

the panel also had a paper description attached

in revolutionary history paintings, the resistance

to the back written by “Sieur Aubert Parent,

to allegory comes not only from the polyva-

Sculptor, Designer, Academician, and former

lent meanings of flowers—signaling at once an

pensioner of his late Majesty Louis XVI.” Recorded

Enlightenment naturalism and artificiality, the

in a stock sheet of the art dealer French and Co.,

expansion of botanical knowledge, and allusion to

the now lost commentary consisted of a thorough

Christian vanitas paintings—but from the obtuse

explanation of the naturalistic scene found on the

nature of wood itself. It is a material so prosaic

front. In writing about his carving, Parent drew

that it barely registers as a type of matter worthy of

particular attention to the highly excavated surface

intellection, calling to mind Kant’s description in

of the lilac, which “especially merits the atten-

the Critique of Judgment of casually coming across

tion of the connoisseur because of the difficulties

a “bit of shaped wood” while walking in a bog and

which the author had to surmount in order to

only just barely registering it as an artifact made

execute . . . without any breakage having worked

with a sense of human purpose. At the same time,

some above as well as below, and also when we

it is precisely wood’s dumbness that allows for its

consider the two flies which are apparently resting

carving to shine as a marvelous, nearly miraculous

on the green tulips.”38 The description was signed,

feat of artistry. Parent’s daringly chiseled passages

“Aubert Parent. Amsterdam 1793.” Based on this

certainly draw attention to the skill involved in

date, along with his self-​identification as “former

working against such antipoetic matter. And seen

pensioner of his late Majesty Louis XVI,” Parent

against the rapidly published and hawked prints

penned the description after the king’s execution.

that sought to represent political events in real



time, or the printed calendars and almanacs that

the means to reaffirm his ties to the monarchy at

promised a future time reordered on the basis of

a time when others, such as Dugourc, sought to

nature’s rhythms and an orderly decimal system

efface their links to the past. No longer guaranteed

rather than the arbitrary ruses of despotism, wood

a steady market in Paris, Parent added an inter-

carving was a slower medium both to accomplish

pretive label to the back of his work that would

36

37

Relabeling the panel provided Parent with

Aubert-Henri-Joseph Parent

121

anchor and stabilize the obverse side of the object

newly established laws made returning to France

and provide semantic reassurance to the work’s

even more difficult. In the summer of 1792, the

future, probably royalist owner. What ultimately

Legislative Assembly passed a series of laws against

distinguished his limewood carvings from those

émigrés that enabled the confiscation and sale of

of his competitor Démontreuil is his obsessive

their land as biens nationaux and placed family

marking of the place and time of their facture,

members remaining in France under permanent

or what might otherwise be called terminal dates,

surveillance. After the September Massacres and

after his exile in Switzerland. Again, he exploits all

the official end of the monarchy, those who had

sides of his works, taking advantage of each plane

departed were “banished in perpetuity,” with the

as a means to explain and heighten his achieve-

death penalty for any émigrés captured in France.

ments and to signal his presence in the world. The

On October 24, 1792, the government sanctioned

panels function at once as markers of his experi-

the seizure and selling of émigrés’ movable prop-

ence in exile, landmarks of his location, as well

erty.40 Whatever one’s reasons had been for leaving,

as archival records of past projects he hopes to

exiting France inadvertently made one an enemy

convert into the starting point for future commis-

of the state. Emigration also helped to refashion

sions. Unstable with mutable meanings because of

identities. Noble titles and names were dropped

their resistance to a singular reading, the carvings

for more mundane ones that were no longer tied

operate, to paraphrase Baxandall, as “accumulative

to feudal residences and seigneurial rights: “For

processes” instead of fixed artifacts.

noblemen, the invention of a completely unedited destiny opens a parenthesis that ruptures noble filiation and is at times accompanied by a change in name: Moré de Pontgibaut becomes Labrosse

Exile and Excavation

once he becomes a businessman.”41 Dispossession had become a key feature of the



political strategy of the revolutionary government

émigrés were diverse and defy easy categorization,

by the time Parent departed Paris in early 1792,

in spite of the revolutionary rhetoric issuing from

as the first wave of émigrés, including the comte

Paris that transformed all émigrés into aristo-

d’Artois and the prince de Condé, left France and

crats tout court. Arriving in Basel in 1792, Parent

established royalist strongholds in Germany in the

would have heard the news of the king’s death

hope of raising an army and restoring the French

from the safe distance of his new life outside Paris.

throne. Strictly speaking, the individuals leaving

Before the Swiss Confederation was defeated and

the country did not identify themselves as political

seized by the French in 1798, the canton formed

refugees, exiles, or even as émigrés. Gerrit Walczak

an important destination for prominent émigrés;

has emphasized the strong economic impetus that

d’Angiviller resided (perhaps somewhat conspicu-

drove painters such as Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun

ously) for six weeks at the Auberge des Trois Rois in Basel before moving onward to Mannheim,

to move to various European cities, though her original reason for leaving France was political.

where, according to his valet, “there was a prodi-

Following each successive wave of departures,

gious quantity of French émigrés.”42 While Basel

39

122

The motivations, paths, and receptions of

Luxury After the terror

was but one brief sojourn in a period of perma-

buried just outside of Basel.44 The desire to estab-

nent itineracy for the former powerful minister

lish a new career on ancient grounds had particu-

of Louis XVI, ironically rendering him an “errant

lar resonance amid the political dispossessions and

subject,” it provided Parent, former pensioner of

dispersals happening in France, which sought to

the French king, with the opportunity to estab-

eradicate the traces of an intractable social order

lish his roots and change his profession in a

that had once seemed to be set in stone.

place where the academies did not hold the same



cultural sway as in Paris. Among the most promi-

wood sculptures even as he gained greater stature

nent early commissions he received during this

led him to encounter a particularly influential

period was the creation of a picturesque garden at

collaborator, Johann Caspar Lavater. A Zwinglian

Württembergerhof for the wealthy Basel manufac-

pastor and theologian based in Zurich, Lavater

turer Rudolf Forcart-​Weiss. Parent incorporated

became a celebrity owing to his popular publica-

real Roman columns and a wall into the garden

tions on physiognomy, including Physiognomische

from an archaeological excavation he undertook in

Fragmente, issued from 1775 to 1778. In an age of

the nearby town of Augst, probably relying on his

sentimental empiricism when concepts of free

own antique designs to fashion the four monu-

will replaced notions of predestination, Lavater’s

mental vases that marked the terminal points

“scientific method” for divining man’s charac-

of the garden parterres. The commission helped

ter from his outward expression found an eager

transform him from an itinerant wood-​carver into

audience among savants and ordinary individuals

an architect-​designer. That the excavations helped

alike, who sought to align inner sentiments with

him achieve success in his new home, identified

the physical characteristics of individuals. A mix-

by its Latin name of Tigurina in the carving of

ture of popular religious sentiment, mysticism,

Louis XVI, is attested to by the fact that he had the

and Enlightenment natural theology, his spurious

results published in 1804 and the following year

claims about the human character spoke to readers

became architect-​in-​chief of the Catholic canton

who had been equally awed by the performances

of Solothurn, where d’Angiviller had briefly stayed

of Franz Mesmer and Alessandro Cagliostro; his

during the early years of his exile.

work spurred countless imitators. George Brewer



combined the Swiss pastor’s writings with Charles

43

Typically associated with the Grand Tour and

Parent’s insistence on continuing to carve

the rediscovery of antiquity, archaeological digs

Le Brun’s theories of the passions to create a ver-

could also help to reorient one’s past toward new

sion geared toward children in his 1812 publication,

professional futures. The brief time Parent spent

The Juvenile Lavater, or a Familiar Explanation

living in Italy would have provided enough cred-

of the Passions of Le Brun, Calculated for the

ibility to establish his professional bona fides in

Instruction & Entertainment of Young Persons.

Switzerland. It is conceivable that the older, more

While others offered to put physiognomy to use in

mature Parent thought of the archaeological exca-

divining the characters of women, as in Le Lavater

vations at Augst as a means of redressing his ear-

des dames, ou L’art de connoitre les femmes sur leur

lier misadventures in Italy, by literally grounding

physiognomy, his works proved highly influential

his identity upon the ancient Roman foundations

among the artists of the day.

Aubert-Henri-Joseph Parent

123

Fig. 46 Johann Caspar Lavater, detail of dedication to Aubert-​Henri-​ Joseph Parent from Règles physiognomiques; ou, observations sur quelques traits caractéristiques, 1795. Manuscript. Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (850007). Photo: author.

Physiognomy depended on meeting and

the exterior with the interior, of the visible surface

comparing a wide variety of faces and personali-

with the invisible that it embraces, of the animate

ties, and travel provided Lavater with the means

and perceptible material with the non-​perceptible

of studying his subjects. In his own words, he was

principle that imprints this character of life,

not the inventor of physiognomy but “the restorer

of the manifest effect with the hidden force that

of this science, human and divine.” Writing in

produces it.”47

Essai sur la physiognomie, he claimed to have had



no interest at all in the subject until the age of

him highly sought after. His guest book regis-

twenty-​five. While he had enjoyed drawing por-

tered the list of famous personages who trav-

traits from an early age, he had never thought to

eled to see him at home in Zurich and whom he

connect this pastime with an attempt to divine the

encountered throughout his extensive journeys

inner character of individuals from their outward

across Europe. Parent’s signature is recorded on

facial features. Suddenly, one day, upon looking

September 28, 1795, two years after the French

at a face, he experienced a sort of “shudder that

sculptor had arrived in Switzerland. The close

lasted several moments after the departure of the

nature of their friendship is corroborated by a

person.” After studying and drawing countless

manuscript copy of Lavater’s book, Règles phy-

portraits, he gradually discerned that certain traits

siognomiques; ou, observations sur quelques traits

and temperaments corresponded to each other,

caractéristiques, dedicated to Parent and dated to

which led him to define physiognomy as “the sci-

the fall of 1795 (fig. 46). He dedicated the book

ence which teaches to recognize the relationship of

to Parent on a printed cartouche pasted inside the



45

46

124

Luxury After the terror

Lavater’s skills at divining characters made

first page: “Monsieur Aubert Parent, tres honnete homme—et sculpteur et architecte tres habile est recom[m]andé par cette ligne tres amicalement à tous regards—en allemagne. Zurich ce 6. XI. 1795.” Functioning as a calling card and letter of introduction, the book benefited Parent and helped to publicize the work of the Swiss pastor, since the “letter” had been placed within a copy of his own writings. Parent’s friendship with Lavater undoubtedly put him in touch with a vast network of correspondents, acquaintances, and aristocratic patrons with whom the pastor had come into contact through his work as a physiognomist.

Tying limewood sculpture to physiognomy

gave new life to Parent’s carved forms. In Paris, the sculptor had usually displayed his works in the Salon de la Correspondance, a commercial instead of a fine art context. By allying his works to Lavater’s popular philosophy, the chiseled surfaces of Parent’s panels became interpretive devices for reading character and meditations on his “science.” Geniuses and imbeciles, kings and thieves could all be read like open books, thanks to Lavater. Art played a particularly important role in this

Fig. 47 Johann Caspar Lavater, detail of page from Règles physiognomiques; ou, observations sur quelques traits caractéristiques, 1795. Manuscript. Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (850007). Photo: author.

philosophy, since sketching the lines of different faces was key to unlocking the mysteries of inner character. At his Zurich home, Lavater kept

encountering different individuals. Meant to help

a series of study portraits, which he placed into

readers grasp the “hidden forces” that shaped the

mounts and paired with textual descriptions of

characters of various subjects, Lavater’s drawings

the portrayed individual’s character. The studies

at times dissolve into abstract lines and shapes. The

yielded the insights into different personalities

hand-​drawn illustrations of deconstructed faces

published in his books. These included portraits

in Parent’s manuscript copy at times appear like

of famous men such as René Descartes and Isaac

surrealist exercises. A pair of furrowed brows and

Newton, whose faces were dissected and cata-

a rainbow of wrinkles, for example, are reduced

loged into fragments of split chins, raised eye-

to a series of abstract lines somewhat ironically

brows, snub noses, and downcast eyes, each of

indicating, according to Lavater’s theories, “the

which corresponded to a distinct personality trait

infallible mark of a stupid mind, nearly incapable

determined through Lavater’s own experience of

of any type of abstraction” (fig. 47).48

Aubert-Henri-Joseph Parent

125

deprived of every other vestige of her formerly

The Science of Mourning

ennobled status.50 Disconsolate with grief over As the Thermidorian Reaction sought to bring

her husband and her financial situation, Franziska

an end to the policies of the Terror in France, the

wrote to Lavater in a letter after her husband’s

exiled Parent transformed the image of Louis XVI

death in a language filled with personal disaster:

into a personal object of mourning. Serving as both promoter and collaborator, Lavater was

O Friend! What a shipwreck I have suffered,

instrumental in publicizing the French carver’s

still I hope only from this world to find a

work to female patrons whom he himself sought

future compensation. Your commiseration,

to cultivate, including Franziska von Hohenheim,

which you affirm in partaking in my sad fate,

duchess of Württemberg, to whom the Louis XVI

once again awoke the first gentle sentiments in

medallion was dedicated. Raised in the Pietist

my heart that hitherto appeared to no longer

faith, she was a commoner by birth who had

have belief in God and friendship; because

become the official mistress of Carl Eugene, Duke

I have forever lost the most precious, the most

of Württemberg, in 1774, after he purchased

beloved in the world. . . . Now everything has

the title of countess and crest of the extinct

changed—I know how to forego everything,

Bombaste von Hohenheim family on her behalf;

but the domestic happiness, sage contact, that

she later became his wife. On the carving, the

mutual understanding, that communication

two coats of arms of Württemberg and Bombaste

between us! To lose these and to still go on

von Hohenheim, supporting a crown and posi-

living, I almost do not know how to endure.51

49

tioned just below the sacrificial lamb, appear to

126

signal the noble rank of Parent’s patron. By 1795,



Franziska had actually been stripped of both of

crown and rendered powerless, Louis XVI would

these titles, reduced to nothing more than a com-

have resonated with the former German duchess,

moner after her husband’s death in 1793. Because

to whom Parent and Lavater offered the intimately

the duke was Catholic, he could not marry the

scaled carving more as a form of consolation rather

Protestant divorcée until the death of his first wife

than a commissioned piece. Though it is a coinci-

in 1780; their union was only officially recognized

dence that the loss of her titles occurred at the very

in 1786 but was never fully accepted by his fam-

moment that émigrés departed France and the sei-

ily. In the fall of 1793, Carl Eugene’s brother and

gneurial lands that had been attached to their

successor, Ludwig Eugene, set about divesting

names, their arrival in the Duchy of Württemberg

Franziska of her noble title, rights to succession,

(a territory that in the eighteenth century also

and the properties and estates that her husband

included Montbéliard, where Georges Cuvier grew

had so painstakingly sought to secure under her

up) would have had added significance. The reverse

name before his death. In the end, she was left

side features a paper cartouche with a handwrit-

with nothing but the languishing properties of

ten text (fig. 48). Titled “On the tomb of Louis, the

Ensingen and Sindlingen, 60,000 guilders, and the

murdered victim” (auf Ludwigs, des Ermordeten,

furnishings in her dressing room and her clothes,

Sarg), the poem is dedicated to Franziska. Although

Luxury After the terror

As a figure who had been stripped of his

Fig. 48 Johann Caspar Lavater, detail of auf Ludwigs, des Ermordeten, Sarg—von Aubert Parent (on reverse of plate 16). Dalva Brothers, New York. Image courtesy of Leon Dalva.

emerge from the steam of the blood as stars from

it has been argued that the paper cartouche was

clouds

prepared by Parent, who is named in the title, it is far more likely that Lavater authored the poem,

and Christ welcomes the noble with new names

since his name is written at the bottom right-​hand

Johann Kaspar Lavater 179553

corner of the card. In its formal qualities, it closely resembles his collection of Denkzeichen or “thought

Unlike the terse description of the king’s death

notes,” a poetic economy of pithy statements that

that Pinel provided in his letter to his brother at

gained their force of meaning from their limited

the beginning of this chapter, Lavater’s poem is

surface, in a manner similar to a tombstone:

not intended as an eyewitness account. Though

52

an oblique reference is made to the raised blade of When innocence bleeds, the people rampage, ingratitude raises the blade Woefulness cries feebly, virtue falls silent, and pain is muted God appears to veil himself—then the heavens augur greatness for misrecognized souls are holy to the knower of souls . . . when the blood spurts, the head sinks . . . thus the heavens see them

the guillotine, the father of physiognomy pushes poetic license to the brink of questionable taste, abandoning the relatively calm and straightforward descriptive language used by both Sanson the executioner and Pinel the psychiatrist in favor of a scene filled with spurting blood and a starry sky, where Jesus awaits the ascent of Louis XVI’s soul to heaven.

Why such emphasis on the coffin? Recall

that upon his move to Switzerland, Parent had

Aubert-Henri-Joseph Parent

127

decided to change course in his career, working on

in classical drapery to the right holding an oval

landscaping projects, monuments, and archaeo-

portrait of a woman, presumably the princess’s

logical excavations that would eventually allow

mother, held above a plinth with objects. Although

him, toward the end of his life, to style himself

Lavater wrote to the princess that Parent, “a very

as a successful architect in Basel. As much as

economical and skilled man” (ein sehr billiger und

he emphasized the murdered king, Parent has

geschickter Mann) could be asked to construct

carefully chosen to depict the coffin in as much

a model in wood, the princess appears to have

architectural detail as possible, to the degree that

ultimately declined to commission the design.57

it is possible to imagine it having been carved out

Though it seems that the model was not executed,

of a heavy polychrome marble. Given the return

it demonstrates how Parent mobilized wood to

toward classical antiquity in revolutionary Paris

create potential collaborative projects with Lavater,

and Parent’s own proclivities, the heavy baroque

and how Lavater offered to realize works on behalf

shape of the tomb appears deliberately anachronis-

of his patrons through Parent’s economical and

tic, a stylistic impossibility for a king whose body

dexterous hands.

was never recovered from the mass grave at the



Madeleine Cemetery.

lion and the proposal for the Schaumburg-​Lippe



monument suggest the ways in which physiog-

54

The Louis XVI medallion coincided with

another funerary project that Parent worked on

nomy was not only a form of light-​hearted enter-

in 1795 with Lavater, who asked him to design

tainment but also could serve as a personal device

a monument on behalf of the Princess Juliane

for the bereaved, seeking consolation for the loss of

Schaumburg-​Lippe to commemorate her mother.

loved ones, in the case of the princess, or mourn-

The correspondence between the princess and

ing past lives. This is surprising, since Lavater’s

Lavater suggests that the idea was primarily his.

work has more commonly been interpreted as

Drawing upon his physiognomic ideas, he writes

an Enlightenment pseudoscience that was the

that “the simplest, most worthy and proper

forerunner to nineteenth-​century theories of rac-

[design] appears to me—your image in profile (you

ist hierarchies and twentieth-​century eugenics.58

must send me a good profile) in the figure of Hope

Melissa Percival has gone so far as to call Lavater’s

against the image of the Deceased.”55 In her reply,

work “a pernicious incitement to the moral defa-

Juliane complained that she felt uncomfortable

mation of certain races, types, and individuals,”

including her portrait under the guise of hope,

arguing that his science was hardly an exact one,

since the aim of the monument was to memorial-

since it was essentially formed from a jumbled

ize her mother and not herself. Lavater deferred

series of fragmentary texts that pieced together

to her decision, agreeing not to incorporate her

old sources with new images and Lavater’s own

profile portrait into the design. An existing sketch

religious quirks.59 As a branch in the prehistory

by Parent shows the monument as a veined marble

of psychology, the pastor-​philosopher’s writings

pedestal in the form of a Roman sarcophagus sur-

marked a regressive turn to the fixed topography

mounted by a funerary urn (fig. 49). Within the

of the face instead of an interest in pathognomy

pedestal is a large tableau depicting a female figure

or movement, which made French theories of

56

128

Read together, both the Louis XVI medal-

Luxury After the terror

Fig. 49 Aubert-​Henri-​Joseph Parent, Esquisse pour un projet de monument d’après l’idée de monsieur le ministre Lavater, 1793 [1795?]. Pen and ink and watercolor, 23 × 16 cm. Landesarchiv Niedersachsen—Department Bückeburg S 1 B 2979. Photo: Niedersächsisches Landesarchiv.

expression, such as those of Charles Le Brun, dis-

the sitter’s stilled outline in a profile portrait with

tinct from ancient Greek interpretations. Lavater

absolute precision—the physiognomic portrait

emphasized stillness and fixity as the means of cap-

could by extension be linked to the visual spectacle

turing the human character via precisely measured

of the guillotine and what Daniel Arasse called the

silhouettes and death masks, a macabre interest in

blade’s punctum temporis: “By its instantaneous

the nonliving that was also found in his obsession

action, the guillotine sets before our eyes the invis-

with capturing the expression of death, where “the

ibility of death at the very instant of its occurrence,

moment of death is deeply expressive and absorb-

exact and indistinguishable.”61

ing because it is the moment of the departure of



the soul from the body.” In its ties to the physi-

Lavater’s theory within a teleological frame-

onotrace—a scaffold-​like device used to capture

work that leads to the swift punitive blade of the

60

Caution should be exercised in situating

Aubert-Henri-Joseph Parent

129

guillotine. For at the same time, physiognomy

a prereflexive certainty of man from which the

drew upon older religious traditions. Alongside

unity of the person and all its intellectual endeav-

Enlightenment philosophy or the Revolution’s

ors can be directly deduced.”63 In Paracelsus’s early

visuality of the mechanically produced instant,

modern philosophy of nature based upon a system

Lavater’s divination of the face suggests the sur-

of resemblances and signatures, the “external form

vival of local religious traditions in Germany and

is shaped according to its inner being, and not

Switzerland, where the events unfolding in France

the other way around.”64 Nature thus operates as a

were seen as but a late historical crisis that had

revelatory agent, with the human body the privi-

already begun in the sixteenth century with the

leged object through which hidden powers would

Protestant Reformation. The Zwinglian ordained

become manifest. Bergengreuen writes, “As in

pastor could be seen as representing one of the

the case of stones, plants, and animals, human

final surviving strains of a neo-​Pietist faith in

signatures also point toward a hidden interior.

the Swiss-​German regions. Pietism as a branch of

The shape of the hands (‘chiromantia’), the face

Lutheranism emphasized the importance of salva-

(‘physiognomia’), the rest of the body (‘substan-

62

130

tion through individual good works and religious

tia’) as well as gestures and body language . . . are

devotion. Though physiognomy was not entirely

important clues for ‘Erkenntnis des Menschen.’ ”65

antagonistic to certain Enlightenment views on the

Seen in terms of a theory of signatures, Lavater’s

cultivation of a moral character, Lavater’s writings

system depends upon establishing correspon-

positioned physiognomy in a vertical spiritual

dences between the visible outline of the portrait

economy informed by a Protestant pietism that

and the unseen character inside. In this context,

paradoxically made room, alongside the sensuous,

the linear economy privileged in his work is not

visible, and rational, for the invisible.

simply a series of drawn lines that can be erased or



corrected but constitutes the outermost bound-

Rather than dismiss Lavater’s influential writ-

ings as simply parochial, reductive, and regressive

aries that keep what is inside from the outside,

forms of thought, Maximilian Bergengruen has

at the same time that these borders make possible

proposed that the most peculiar aspects found in

the correspondences between the inner traits and

the Swiss author’s work resulted from his attempts

their outer expressions.

to reconcile a prereflexive signature theory based



in the theological writings of Paracelsus with

reader of Paracelsus, his active engagement with

modern sensualist patterns of thought. Lavater was

Lavater’s philosophy makes it possible to link the

conversant with contemporary German thinkers,

reception of his wood carving with the German

such as those of the Sturm und Drang movement.

cultural traditions that placed the viewing of

As Bergengruen argues, Lavater’s unsystematic

limewood sculpture in an idiosyncratic religious

theory does not target science for its claims to ulti-

context. Even the most modest of the French émi-

mate truth but seeks to make it fühlbar, or sensible:

gré’s secular carvings could thus be open to inter-

“the concept of feeling used by German sensual-

pretations colored by Pietist fervor. The disruptive

ism comprises two things: first, a link between

incursions of early modern natural philosophy and

external perception and inner experience; second,

theosophy in Lavater’s text could be dismissed as

Luxury After the terror

Though it is unlikely that Parent was an avid

simply incidental references to the past in an over-

to be rustic and roughhewn forms compared to

all inconsistent philosophical system. However,

his more sophisticated works. Had this composi-

recall that Paracelsus’s writings had provided the

tion merely been intended for translation into

limewood sculptors of Renaissance Germany with,

print, as in Parent’s earlier forays into furniture

if not exactly a theory of carving, at least a guiding

design and ornamental work, the medallion would

context for the haptic metaphors that informed the

have appeared awkward at best. Yet something

modes of visual animation through which early

about the medium of wood is expansive enough to

modern viewers transformed chiseled bits of wood

accommodate the shifts in scale to create a medita-

into objects of religious devotion.

tive totality worth turning over in the mind.





Royalism was not a monolithic culture

Beyond France’s frontiers and deep within

but represented a shifting and evolving form of

the principalities and duchies that made up the

political subjectivity that produced a distinctive

Holy Roman Empire, local forms of religious piety

aesthetic born from conditions of loss, disper-

mingled with émigré political conservatism, giving

sal, and reactionary politics, as well as a strong

shape to modern expressions of counterrevolution.

identification with religion rather than the modern

In Switzerland, politics and religious fervor were

nation-​state.66 Religious interpretations of regicide

not mutually exclusive but overlapping systems.

manifested the difficulties inherent in experiencing

It is not entirely surprising that, when the French

the end—and possible return—of a monarchical

annexed the Swiss Confederacy in 1798, Lavater

regime that had been embodied in the physical

became a vocal critic of the Directory government

presence of Louis XVI. Parent capitalized upon

and what he described in a published letter as

the death of the king, transforming the memory of

the “effects of Terrorism” that France propagated

Louis XVI into a more general symbol of loss that

under the guise of liberating Switzerland, effects

precipitated a recursion to older forms of mourn-

that, “even within the sound of freedom’s trumpet,

ing rooted in the religious and cultural practices

lets fall its ponderous hand upon our necks, may

of the past. In the Louis XVI medallion, one can

indeed force numbers to a constrained silence.”67

begin to make out the formal resonances between

Given the dangers of such vocal expressions of

Parent’s carving method and Lavater’s prereflexive

criticism, royalist propaganda typically adopted

physiognomic practice, as well as the need for a

quieter, more elegiac forms of protest. This is most

textual explanation of a complex carving about

apparent in the silhouettes of the guillotined royal

the invisible procedures of death and resurrec-

family merged with signs of Christian mourn-

tion, which form the primary subject matter of

ing. The precursors to the optical illusions of the

Parent’s carved panel. Certainly, the floral motifs,

Rubin vase, the profile portraits of the king and

profile medallion, elegiac tomb, and coats of arms

his family were to be found in the negative spaces

can already be found throughout Parent’s prior

surrounding more visible subject matter, cloaked

work. The heightened unnaturalism and sudden

in a royal and religious invisibility that operated in

shifts in scale in this panel seem to demand some

direct contrast to the all-​seeing eye of transpar-

sort of textual explanation as to why this deft

ency. In a later version of the print that appeared

carver has suddenly been reduced to what appear

during the Bourbon Restoration, the royal family’s

Aubert-Henri-Joseph Parent

131

Fig. 50 Aubert-​Henri-​Joseph Parent, carving of Louis XVI, ca. 1795, detail. Carved limewood with paper and ink cartouche (on reverse), 35.6 × 30 cm (with frame). Dalva Brothers, New York. Image: author. Courtesy of Leon Dalva.

hidden profiles were revealed once more in

not exhumed from the Madeleine graveyard and

order to manifest the restored Bourbon monar-

buried at Saint-​Denis until 1815—Parent’s carving

chy’s legitimate and unbroken line of succession,

becomes a complicated materialization of Lavater’s

which began with Henri IV: his portrait is nestled

physiognomic philosophy caught up in a circu-

between two enormous lily stalks and under the

itous system of resemblances. In contrast to Pâris’s

drooping petals of a pansy, followed by Louis XVI,

grand monument, which sought to resurrect the

Marie-​Antoinette, and the dauphin, and terminat-

language of monumentality and harness it to a roy-

ing with the doubled portraits of Charles X and

alist agenda, Parent’s small monument recognizes

Louis XVIII. The resemblance between the vase

the impossibility of honoring the king in the same

with snake handles in the royalist print and the

vocabulary that had been used to narrate the story

earlier prints by Parent is striking. Conceived as

of the Revolution. Drawing closer, the same careful

ornaments that would serve as visual evidence

puncturing and chiseling methods used to hollow

of Parent’s classical knowledge and familiarity

out and shape the curls of the sacrificial lamb’s

with the monuments of classical Rome, the vase

wool have been used to create the carefully curled

became, in the context of the Revolution, a ves-

hair of Louis XVI on the medallion. Seen from

sel for religious, royal, and dangerously seditious

an oblique angle, one can also see how Parent has

returns.

rendered the butterfly found at the top of the panel



in the highest relief. A symbol of Christian resur-

68

132

Turning the object over once more to contem-

plate the tomb of Louis XVI—which is an ersatz

rection but also the shared Greek word for “soul”

device, since the king’s dismembered body was

and “butterfly,” this lepidopterous form is the most

Luxury After the terror

freed from the surface of the wood panel itself,

wood and pass from a contemplation of the text,

in contrast to the sarcophagus and medallion,

back to a consideration of the relief carving of the

which are bound tightly to the panel’s primary

tomb upon which Lavater’s text has been literally

plane. There is no record of Franziska’s thoughts

and physically composed, as each side gains mean-

on the small carving. But when we look once more

ing in the incessant turning of the object from one

at the image, the dead king’s portrait hemorrhages

side to the other—but we never quite accomplish

rather than accrues symbolic meaning. It is a devo-

a complete experience of beholding. Through a

tional object devoid of material agency. Emptied of

continual process of deferral, one must make this

symbolic content, Louis XVI’s portrait embodies

object work by undertaking a manual motion of

loss itself: Mors immortalitas.

passing from the carved forms on the front to the



textual tablet on the back. And it is precisely in

An unlikely collaborative project created by

the adverse political circumstances that brought

handling this object that one grasps how it enacts

together an émigré French artist and a Swiss

the work of mourning. You need time for the

pastor, this unstable commemorative object was

work to reveal itself, to reveal the shadows that are

more than a royalist monument created in the

not there at noon but that appear underneath the

reactionary atmosphere of small principalities and

flowers at five o’clock, even for the lightly incised

minor courts living on borrowed time, just before

fleur-​de-​lis that make this an unmistakably royal-

Napoleon would effectively bring them to an end.

ist object to appear (fig. 50). To reveal itself, the

The carving brings together systems of religious

carving needs time, the one element necessary to

sentiment and secular commemoration that

access the normal path of grief, a shape of tempo-

clashed and competed, at a time when individuals

rality that became inaccessible to the modern wit-

sought to grapple with the enormity of the French

nesses who gazed at the spectacle of the guillotine,

Revolution and its precise historical significance.

a machine that obeyed the simple laws of physics

Just as it was made by the hands of Parent and

in rendering its forms of knowledge with swiftness

Lavater, we as viewers must handle the piece of

and precision.

69

Aubert-Henri-Joseph Parent

133

F

rench porcelain began washing up on the shores of England in the first years of the nineteenth century. Profiting

from the revolutionary sales that began this book, London auction houses such as Christie’s and Phillips as well as private dealers seized upon the finest examples with a royal provenance and sold them to an elite English clientele hungry for French luxury despite the protracted conflicts between

Chapter 5

Alexandre Brongniart Fragile Terrains

the two nations.1 Among the most voracious consumers was the English regent George IV, who purchased exceptional pieces of Sèvres porcelain, including the lavishly decorated dinner service commissioned by the French king before his reign came to an abrupt end (plate 20). Acquired in 1811 through the agent Robert Fogg from the Paris dealer Würtz, the dinner and dessert service had been ordered by Louis XVI for his use at Versailles in 1783, the same year that the signing of the Peace of Paris concluded the American Revolution. The French king had never before spent such enormous sums on porcelain, and no expense was spared in order to decorate the service with mythological scenes. The manufactory’s most skilled painters participated in the completion of the soft-​paste porcelain wares, with Charles-​Nicolas Dodin and Charles-​Éloi Asselin deploying a range of mythological vignettes found in the reserves of the dinner plates, and the rich blue borders expertly gilded by Étienne-​Henri Le Guay père. In the official ledgers, the king wrote that he expected the service to be completed in 1803. The lengthy, twenty-​three-​year estimate for the completion of the dinner service was probably intended to spread out the exorbitant costs and labor of such a complex commission, which entailed painting figurative scenes on each plate, egg cup, ice-​cream cup, and butter dish.2 A single plate—the way that Sèvres determined

estimates—was more than thirteen times the



amount of a typical example. The continuous

in revolutionary Paris in the years prior to his

production of the porcelain service suggested that

arrival at Sèvres, in order to explore the ways that

Louis XVI hardly expected his reign to end before

a language of extinction and regeneration trans-

the turn of the century, despite the looming fiscal

formed the meanings of porcelain. Tamara Préaud

crisis that threatened France’s stability. Sèvres had

has shown how the administrator’s moderniza-

delivered only half of the sixty-​piece set when it

tion of the manufactory precipitated a number

finally halted activities on the royal commission in

of controversial decisions. These included the

1793, the year of the king’s execution.

selling off of old stock (which inadvertently



diminished the authority of factory designs, since

3

136

While the English regent savored the rem-

This chapter turns to Brongniart’s youth

nants of the ci-​devant French king’s porcelain,

it allowed the circulation of blanks with Sèvres

the Sèvres manufactory had just survived near

marks to be decorated by outside individuals), and

extinction during the French Revolution, before

the establishment of a ceramics museum, which

Alexandre Brongniart brought it back from the

transformed the site of production into a didactic

brink when he took over as director in 1800.

institution for the public. Particularly contentious

The polymath naturalist, who had interests in

for ceramics historians was Brongniart’s deci-

mineralogy, invertebrates, and botany, proved an

sion in 1802 to completely end the production

able administrator in spite of the early misgivings

of soft-​paste porcelain in favor of a sole focus on

about abandoning a career in the sciences for the

hard-paste porcelain.4 What is not often remarked

production of dinner services and vases. Bringing

is that the new director’s initial decisions—to sell

order, stability, and competence to the ailing

off the old stock, to establish a museum, and to

manufactory during what proved to be an excep-

end the obsolete production methods of the past—

tionally long tenure as director that lasted until his

also echoed collective desires for renewal that had

death in 1847, Brongniart introduced an aesthetic

been expressed during the French Revolution,

fueled by a fascination for Egypt and the classical

to eradicate the despotic past in order to build new

past, alongside his personal passion for mineral-

foundations for the future. The anxious search for

ogy and the earth sciences that he had acquired in

solid foundations forged from a temporal break

his youth during the Revolution. The reestablish-

with the past also drove Brongniart’s work as a

ment of Sèvres has typically been ascribed to the

scientist, particularly his collaborative project with

strong state support it received under Napoleon’s

Georges Cuvier to map the geological strata of

plans to revive ailing national luxury industries.

Paris in Essai sur la géographie minéralogique des

Yet the lingering political ideas of regeneration

environs de Paris (1811).

and progress, annihilation and extinction, which



had done so much to remap the terrain of the sci-

manufactory were interwoven with his redis-

ences, arts, and luxury industries in Brongniart’s

covery of the fragile terrains of postrevolution-

youth, found their way into the spaces of the

ary Paris, a city to which this last chapter turns,

former royal porcelain firm located on the route to

even as the liquidation of Versailles opened its

Versailles.

first chapter. Paris was the site of shifting and

Luxury After the terror

Brongniart’s attempts to revive the porcelain

at times conflicting visions of natural history,

politics of Jacobin Terror? Among the rare schol-

technology, and industry, within which porce-

arly analyses of revolutionary period porcelain, the

lain held a surprisingly vital place. While politi-

primary focus has been on the sudden adoption

cal circumstances led to the stylistic upheavals

by Sèvres of republican symbols and emblems,

at Sèvres, the changes at the manufactory make

undoubtedly necessitated by the need to sever its

sense only in relationship to the dynamic indus-

ties to the recent past.6 Likewise, makers of more

tries that appeared in Paris. I therefore turn to

popular forms of ceramics, such as faience or tin-​

Brongniart’s scientific formation in the capital, and

glazed earthenware, eagerly proffered up plates as

how his encounters with the politics of regenera-

an earthly support for political messages that com-

tion shaped his subsequent visions of geology,

memorated egalitarian ideals and members of the

which were profoundly influenced by his friend

third estate, who were often represented by a spade

and collaborator Cuvier, whom he first met in

(fig. 51). Instead of iconography, what interests

Thermidorian Paris. From Brongniart and the

me are the ways in which porcelain, as a medium

scientific community in revolutionary Paris, I turn

of artifice that had literally been dug up from the

to the porcelain being manufactured by the private

earthly foundations of the French nation, embod-

firm Dihl et Guérhard, in order to explore the

ied the changes wrought by the Revolution in the

ways it channeled the energies and anxieties of the

discourse of the Earth. In the absence of a stable

urban landscape into pieces of porcelain that were

source of royal authority and the uncertain value

unlike anything that had been made at the royal

of liquidated examples from the ancien régime,

manufactory. The chapter ends with Brongniart’s

porcelain produced during the French Revolution

arrival at Sèvres, which turned to Paris for sources

registered the anxious politics of the period. Far

of financial support and stylistic renewal.

from being a princely vehicle for gustative delecta-



tion, it became a material site of contestation for

Brongniart’s story requires a broader narra-

tive scope and cast of characters than the more

working through ideas of extinction and regenera-

tightly biographical angles adopted in previ-

tion and visualizing Paris in the wake of the Terror.

ous chapters. This is in part because he was the director of a manufactory and not a designer or artisan. Moreover, his wide-​ranging interests as an

Luxe en danger

academic, savant, and scientist brought together a host of other disciplines to bear upon the produc-

During the annual sale of Sèvres porcelain held

tion of porcelain. A brief survey of the myriad of

in the king’s apartments at Versailles, Louis XVI

research he published over his long career dem-

proudly displayed completed pieces of his din-

onstrates the eclectic range of his interests: from

ner service, unaware that his days as monarch

enamel colors and mining deposits to a natural

were numbered. The tradition had begun under

classification system of reptiles. What did this

Louis XV, when he became the sole owner of

fragile medium, which had operated as a sym-

Sèvres in 1759, after his royal mistress Madame

bol of royal munificence, prestige, and princely

de Pompadour encouraged the king to purchase

diplomacy during the ancien régime, mean in the

the private manufactory formerly located at the

5

Alexandre Brongniart

137

Fig. 51 Anonymous, revolutionary faience plate with “Nous jouons de malheur,” end of the eighteenth century. Tin-​glazed earthenware (faience), 23 cm (diam.). Château-​Musée, Nemours, Inv 2014.0.187.6. Photo © RMN–Grand Palais / Art Resource, New York (Philippe Fuzeau).

château de Vincennes.7 Bold colors and imagina-

the body meant that it was possible to achieve a

tive forms became mainstays of Sèvres. Alongside

brighter range of ground colors than with hard-​

the exotic shapes, enameled and gilded patterns on

paste porcelain.10 Sèvres’s products ranged from

cups, saucers, and vases also evoked the geologi-

lavish services to ornamental garnitures, sets of

cal specimens, corals, flowers, and shells found in

three or more vases intended for display. Workers

the natural history cabinets of wealthy tax farmers,

specialized in different tasks, which ranged from

bankers, and aristocrats, such as Joseph Bonnier de

making molds and stoking the fire to gilding and

la Mosson. Together, these materials conjured the

painting flowers, birds, and figures. Only a king

abundant riches of nature, which offered a spec-

could afford to support such a vast and costly

tacle of wealth on the same continuum as man-​

endeavor.

made luxuries such as porcelain. Sèvres became



particularly well known for its soft-​paste porcelain

Louis XVI appears to have taken an unusual

(porcelaine tendre). With a clay body that appears

interest in the creation of his last dinner service.

creamier than the more vitreous hard-​paste porce-

Geoffrey de Bellaigue has emphasized that the king

8

lain, soft-​paste porcelain did not incorporate the

himself probably insisted on the themes of mythol-

kaolin necessary to making “true” Chinese por-

ogy and Roman history depicted on his royal

celain until a source was discovered in the region

service, in keeping with the classical moralizing

of Saint-​Yrieix in 1769. The chemical qualities of

messages favored by his close advisor and culture

9

138

Largely indifferent to the decorative arts,

Luxury After the terror

minister d’Angiviller, who had sought to revitalize

dismissed it by replying that the gift was a humble

state-​sponsored painting along the same thematic

offering, nothing more than “a piece of his coun-

lines. A number of plates drew from prints of

try’s soil.”15 The elector’s comment is telling for

Ovid’s Metamorphoses and Fénelon’s Télémaque,

the ways in which porcelain not only represented

such as The Golden and Silver Ages painted by

tasteful objects of diplomatic exchange and sym-

Étienne-​Henri Le Guay. Given the annual display

bols of rank but also lent itself to a metaphorical

of pieces to the public, the king may have intended

reading as a physical manifestation of a sovereign’s

the service to be a didactic form of luxury, a politi-

presence and domain. The vast sums of money that

cal gesture aimed at crafting the image of a just

Louis XVI poured into his dinner service during

ruler who would return France to a golden age,

the final years of his reign were thus unremarkable,

even amid the financial crises brought about by

simply a continuation of the royal favor bestowed

the country’s involvement in the American War

upon a precious material that functioned as a use-

of Independence. After Louis XVI was forced

ful instrument of statecraft.

to move to the Tuileries in October 1789, pieces



from the service continued to be exhibited at

been issued, Sèvres was confronting an entirely

the Louvre until January 1792, nearly six months

different situation, given the mounting debts of the

after the royal family’s failed escape and capture

new revolutionary government. Calls had not been

at Varennes. Sèvres made its last delivery on

made to completely demolish the factory. However,

January 13, 1792 (though a few stray pieces contin-

the radical journalist Jean-​Paul Marat singled out

ued to be made that year, some of which were sent

Sèvres in an article he wrote in 1790 that appeared

to a depot in Paris before being auctioned).

in the pages of his polemical journal L’Ami du



peuple. He questioned why such exorbitant

11

12

13

In a courtly Europe, where political advantage

By the time the last pieces of the service had

depended on carefully calibrated munificence,

amounts of public funds had been spent on super-

porcelain had played a strategic role in complex

fluous forms of luxury: “Foreign countries have no

diplomatic exchanges, its fragility serving as an apt

idea about establishments relating to the fine arts,

metaphor for the difficulty of maintaining delicate

or rather, the manufactories run at the expense

political alliances. Therefore, it is not surprising

of the State: the honor of this invention has been

that Louis XVI would have chosen the medium to

reserved for France; among them are included the

convey lofty political ideals to his subjects. When

Sèvres and Gobelins manufactories. The former

his grandfather sent the maréchal de Belle-​Isle

costs the public more than 200,000 livres annually,

to Dresden on a diplomatic mission, the Saxon

for just a few porcelain services that the king gifts

elector Augustus III offered him a Meissen service

to ambassadors; the latter costs him 100,000 écus

that included two tea or coffee services, as well as

annually, though one does not know why, except to

porcelain animals and birds, and a “large dinner

enrich crooks and schemers.”16 Marat does not crit-

service, decorated in the manner of ‘old Japan.’ ”

icize the consumers or the luxury products made

The maréchal signaled his embarrassment at

at these factories. Instead, he censures the delib-

having received such a lavish gift beyond his sta-

erate blurring between private and public inter-

tion. Augustus III, in a sign of princely largesse,

ests, a practice that could be found throughout

14

Alexandre Brongniart

139

140

the ancien régime political system of privileges.17

follow official orders, writing to Garat to ask if a

Collectively, the Sèvres porcelain, Gobelins tap-

few costly examples might be spared.19

estry, and Savonnerie carpet manufactories had



been monopolies privately owned by the king, and

governmental policy of terror threatened the

they therefore centered their productions on royal

destruction of costly materials that were difficult

commissions or supplying diplomatic gifts. Each

to execute, the factory began limiting its produc-

maintained strong associations with the crown,

tion to single cups and saucers, mostly ornamental

which made their survival especially tenuous dur-

works decorated with republican themes, rather

ing the Revolution.

than entire services.20 On the pieces decorated



by Sophie Chanou, the radical painter used the

More than Marat’s criticism, large-​scale

Given such a volatile situation, where a

worker unrest, lack of leadership, and absenteeism

reverse side of cups and saucers, a space formerly

helped to dismantle Sèvres, at a time when it was

reserved for Sèvres factory marks, to depict mes-

no longer able to rely on the steady stream of visi-

sages of solidarity with the new political causes of

tors who had frequented the manufactory en route

the republic. One set by Chanou is decorated with

to the court at Versailles. As Emily Richardson has

a border of roses encircling revolutionary arms,

noted in her study of Sèvres during the Revolution,

capped by a Phrygian bonnet (fig. 52). Instead of

it suffered enormous financial losses due in large

the interlaced L’s (taken from the king’s initials)

part to the outstanding bills left unpaid by the king

of typical Sèvres marks, the underglaze blue mark

along with the wealthy and elite of France who fled

on the reverse declares that the piece was made at

the country. The factory never officially closed.

“Sèvres, l’an 2ème de la république française une

However, its activities declined considerably after

et indivisible et impérissable.”21 Chanou’s painted

the new government took over the property in

text on the reverse of the saucer shows how the

1792. On September 29 of that year, the revolu-

declarative politics of the period colonized a

tionary government removed the royal manufac-

myriad of surfaces, appearing in places where most

tory from the civil list, officially transferring it on

people would not have even bothered to look, save

May 24, 1794, to the Commission of Agriculture

for those seeking out royalist suspects.

and the Arts, under the direct control of the



Committee of Public Safety.18 Along with absentee

of porcelain during the revolutionary period.22

workers and uneven production, weak manage-

These works deliberately overturned the medium’s

ment made it difficult to quell organized labor and

royal associations by demonstrating a keen aware-

the threats of violent retaliation for unpaid wages.

ness of the changing political atmosphere in Paris,

Old and unsold stock crowded the storerooms.

while perhaps revealing, like Chanou’s work, the

In the late summer of 1793, Antoine Régnier, then

underlying allegiances of the manufactory’s work-

head of the factory, received a letter from Minister

ers. On July 22, 1794, Sèvres completed a déjeuner

of the Interior Dominique-​Joseph Garat, demand-

tête-​à-​tête, a richly decorated tea set made of soft-​

ing that all molds and models representing royalty

paste porcelain that included cups and saucers,

and denounced individuals were to be destroyed.

a teapot, a milk jug, sugar bowl, and tray (plate 21).

Régnier was fired in 1793 after he hesitated to

The models derived from the ancien régime, with

Luxury After the terror

Sèvres also executed more ambitious examples

Fig. 52 Sèvres Manufactory, Sophie Chanou (decorator), cup and saucer (tasse litron and mignonette), 1794 (l’an 2 de la République française). Soft-​paste porcelain. Cité de la Céramique, Sèvres, MNC21185. Photo © RMN–Grand Palais / Art Resource, New York (Martine Beck-​Coppola).

the tray (known as a plateau de déjeuner Paris),

fundamental tension between an object intended

for example, having been in use by the manufac-

for polite and intimate forms of sociability and a

tory as early as 1775. Remarkably, the lobed tray

public event that became virtually emblematic of

of the déjeuner depicted a painting of the Fête de

the terrorist policies of Robespierre, a man who

l’Être Suprême, which had been held a little over a

seemingly embodied the “republican austerity” and

month before the set was completed.23

“primitive modesty” of the moment.24 Taking place



on 20 Prairial, year II (June 8, 1794) at the height of

We do not know for whom the tea set

was made. However, the porcelain embodies a

the Terror, the Festival of the Supreme Being was

Alexandre Brongniart

141

orchestrated by Jacques-​Louis David at the behest



of Robespierre, who sought to establish a new civic

from the déjeuner were reminiscent of old forms in

religion that would replace the superstitions of the

use during the ancien régime, Sèvres also created

past with the cult of reason and nature, driving

new models in service of the Revolution. Among

away the dangers of atheism. The procession com-

the most unique was undoubtedly the incredibly

menced at the Tuileries with participants rejecting

refined republican sundial made around 1794–95,

atheism and ended at the Champ de Mars, where

as the recently elected members of the Directory

true believers climbed atop a magnificent artificial

government sought to distance themselves from

mountain made of plaster and cardboard dedicated

the Terror (plate 22). Jean-​César Batellier had

to the Supreme Being (conveniently, the mountain

commissioned the piece after being named a

was also the political symbol of Robespierre’s own

représentant en mission to Sèvres on September 16,

faction in the National Convention). The writer

1793, becoming an unlikely patron of the manufac-

Charles Nodier later recalled the strong impression

tory who periodically ordered works for himself.

that the festival had made upon him, as the deathly

He was not alone, for colleagues stationed at

memory of the guillotine gave way to flowers and

Sèvres were known to have commissioned portrait

a sense of summery renewal: “Never did a sum-

busts of superiors in the hope of winning favor.28

mer’s day rise more pure on our horizon. . . . The

The sundial is octagonal in shape, with its edges

tortures had ceased. The instrument of death had

decorated in an incredibly finely painted imitation

disappeared behind the hangings and banks of

of red porphyry. The carefully depicted trompe

flowers.”26 As in Nodier’s recollection, the scene

l’oeil oak garlands laden with acorns appear to

on the porcelain tray depicted by Edmé-​François

be woven into each of the piece’s eight sides. The

Bouillat includes an arrangement of flowers, a bas-

bronze gnomon is modern.

ket of grapes, and a peacock set in the foreground,



with the festival’s mountain visible in the distance.

complex and overlapping systems of time, one of

Of course, the porcelain does not depict the fact

which represented the temporal order of the old

that just two days after the festival, the Committee

world, and another that pointed to the new world.

25

The simple white face of the sundial contains

of Public Safety issued the Law of 22 Prairial

The didacticism of the piece is evident in its mul-

(June 10, 1794), the Law of the Grand Terror, which

tiple layers. The inner circle composed of Roman

accelerated the violence of the period by denying

numerals contains the twelve hours that had

the right to a fair trial, with sentences ending in

traditionally divided the day. The top of the inner

either acquittal or death. Nor, of course, is there

ring is cut in the center between six and seven by

any mention of the fact that less than a week after

another ring formed by a snake biting its tail, the

Sèvres completed the déjeuner, Robespierre, the

symbol of the Ouroboros that embodied an even

primary orchestrator of the festival, was guillo-

older, cyclical vision of mythic time. Above the

tined. It is surprising that the service survived the

snake hovers the all-​seeing eye of surveillance,

purges that took place shortly after the downfall of

a representation of revolutionary vigilance meant

the Incorruptible.

to ward off the enemies of the Republic, which

27

142

While the milk jug, tray, and cups and saucers

Luxury After the terror

was also displayed prominently on the letterhead

decimal system that divided the hours of the day,

designs for the Committee of Public Safety. Within

the days of the year, the systems of weights and

the protective circle of the snake sits a cockade

measurements, and even money into units of ten.

atop a level and a fictional volume of the French

At the center of all these recalibrations stood the

constitution. The new names of the months from

Earth, which had been measured by scientists so

the Republican calendar are spelled out on the

that all the Revolution’s systems would physically

central north–​south axis of the sundial in line with

be based upon natural and palpable foundations.31

the gnomon. A secondary circle of numbers, from

While luxury watchmakers such as Abraham-​

two to eight, redivides the twelve-​hour clock into a

Louis Breguet made expensive timepieces with

decimal system of time, with the nighttime hours

decimal time for wealthy clients, timekeeping,

from nine to one removed, since the sundial could

as Matthew Shaw indicates, could be done in a

not function during those hours. The outer perim-

number of less expensive ways, “by bells or sundi-

eter of digits replaces the 360 degrees traditionally

als, or discerned from the sound of traffic or the

found on a sundial into a decimal system of 300

height of the sun.”32 As a symbolic rather than a

degrees. As shown, the gnomon on the image thus

strictly utilitarian object, the sundial constituted

points to 7:30 in the morning according to the old

a powerful means of visualizing the collective and

timekeeping system; it is three in the morning in

public aims of the Revolution. If the Christian

revolutionary time.

calendar had allowed monarchs and the church to



wield their power in obscurity over the common

29

What was Batellier after in asking Sèvres to

execute such an unusual form of porcelain? Based

people in an arbitrary system that granted the

upon the natural, diurnal rhythms of the sun, the

control of time itself, time now would be public,

sundial participated in the revolutionary trans-

open to all, and dictated by the rational rhythms

formation of time. In October 1793, the govern-

of the sun.33

ment issued an official Republican calendar, which



retroactively declared September 1792 as the first

ics of French porcelain transformed from a rarity

year of the Republic. Each of the twelve months

reserved for exceptional clients into a political

of the year were renamed after the seasons and

expression of transparency and reason. Porcelain,

divided into equal units of three “decades,” ten-​

which had once functioned as a symbol of the

day weeks that left a five-​day period at the end of

French crown’s cultural authority, was used during

the year that was reserved for annual festivals. The

the Terror to assert the government’s attempts to

poet Philippe François Nazaire Fabre d’Églantine

ground its legitimacy in nature. Both the déjeuner

chose new names for the months based upon the

set commemorating the festival of the Supreme

natural cycles of the seasons, with the summer

Being and the sundial with revolutionary time

months of Messidor, Thermidor, and Fructidor,

spoke to the ways in which political visions of

for example, respectively recalling the harvests,

nature affected the production of porcelain at

heat, and fruits yielded in the warmer months.

Sèvres during a period when it lacked the strong

The calendar formed one part of an interlocking

support of a sovereign power.

30

The sundial demonstrates how the aesthet-

Alexandre Brongniart

143

Breaking Ground

300,000 Parisians joined in the construction work during the journée des brouettes to build the scenic

Images heralding nature as the source of national

arch, altar, and stands, which would rival the great

regeneration gained greater urgency upon the

public festivities of ancient Rome (fig. 53).35 The

death of the king in 1793. Before they became part

performative and collective forms of labor that

of our own language of climate crisis and the “sixth

helped to stage the Fête de la Fédération became

extinction,” pictures of blistering suns, tumultuous

part of its mythic status as the only festival that

seas, earthquakes, and exploding volcanos were

managed to truly achieve absolute transparency

harnessed to legitimize the Terror by showing that

and unity. The event was nonetheless subject to

moments of crisis and renewal could be found in

fictive representations, as we saw in the drawing

nature. Even prior to his death, Louis XVI was

proposed by Dugourc from the previous chapter.

pictured as being brought down to the level of the



earth. His presence at the Fête de la Fédération,

help break ground in the name of liberty, equality,

held on July 14, 1790, was heralded at the celebra-

and fraternity, a point emphatically made by the

tion, which marked the first anniversary of the

prints of the period depicting the festival under

Revolution and France’s national unity. Nearly

construction. The image of the king at work,

34

Fig. 53 Anonymous, Travaux du Champ de Mars pour la Confédération du 14 juillet 1790 par les citoyens de Paris: Louis XVI y travailla le 9, 1790. Engraving, 19 × 24 cm. Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris. Photo: BnF.

144

Luxury After the terror

Everyone was supposed to pick up an axe and

Fig. 54 (left) Anonymous, Le roi, piochant au Champ de Mars, 1790. Engraving, 12.5 × 8.5 cm. Private collection. Fig. 55 (right) Anonymous, faience plate with execution of Louis Capet, January 21, 1793, ca. 1793. Tin-​glazed earthenware. Musée de la Picardie, Amiens, Inv 5500. Photo © RMN–Grand Palais / Art Resource, New York (Agence Bulloz).

shown breaking a sweat while breaking ground

of France into a well-​tilled, bountiful earth, the

with an axe alongside his compatriots, signaled

decapitated king was found nourishing the earth-

the newfound sense of equality and productivity

enware surfaces of plates that circulated as forms

of all of France’s citizens, the head of the nation

of anti-​monarchical propaganda (fig. 55). The

brought down to the level of the people (fig. 54).

prints of his head being held aloft were accompa-

The hieratic scale aimed at emphasizing the king’s

nied by the calls for his impure blood to water the

stature is undone by the steep backdrop, crowded

furrows of the French nation. In death, he would

with figures atop the peak of the mountain. After

serve as an example: in the words of Robespierre,

his death, the body of the king was made to do the

“What more surefire way to degrade [the other

symbolic work of nourishing the French people.

European monarchs] in the eyes of their people,

Instead of being pictured turning the foundations

and to strike them with fear, than the spectacle of

Alexandre Brongniart

145

their accomplice sacrificed to the betrayed liberty

tombs at Saint-​Denis, disinterring the corpses of

[of France]? This spectacle will be a Medusa’s head

kings and queens, including the bodies of Henri IV,

for them.”

Louis XIV, and Louis XV. Precious jewels and bits



of gold were carefully put aside while the workers

36

Festivals of nature became mandatory for the

youth of the nation threatened by its enemies, and

piled the remnants of royal coffins and debris to

failure to participate in these exercises of col-

create a makeshift monument to Jean-Paul Marat

lective will could be fatal, as Brongniart himself

and Louis-​Michel le Peletier de Saint-​Fargeau.40

discovered. On August 10, 1793, the twenty-​three-​



year-​old should have been in Paris standing before

ers unearthed the remains of dead kings and

the statue of Nature on the ruins of the Bastille cel-

queens, Brongniart embarked on a different kind

ebrating the Festival of the Unity and Indivisibility

of digging at Fontainebleau. Needing a break from

of the Republic. Orchestrated by David to celebrate

his strenuous coursework at the Société d’Histoire

the defeat of federalism and the overthrow of the

naturelle and teaching duties at the newly estab-

Girondin faction on the anniversary of the popular

lished Lycée des arts, he had decided to travel with

uprising at the Tuileries, the festival was a sweep-

two friends to Fontainebleau to go herborizing. His

ing allegorical history of the events so far.37 David

courses of instruction included worms, amphib-

intended to make clear the links between national

ians, frogs, tortoises, corals, and shells, along with a

regeneration and “the rising of the day’s star,

number of topics about which he knew hardly any-

which makes us tremble with the joy of nature.”

thing. Upset after a failed attempt to secure a posi-

Four principal moments of the Revolution were

tion at the newly established Muséum, Brongniart

represented by an Egyptian statue of Nature placed

saw the trip to Fontainebleau as one that promised

upon the ruins of the Bastille, an arch of triumph

“great pleasure to this party of savages.”41 The

dedicated to the women who had led the march

friends made sure to pack essential provisions,

to Versailles in October 1789, a figure of Liberty

such as “potatoes, cheese, chocolate and flour,” but

commemorating the execution of the king, and

forgot to pack their passports, which were required

a colossal plaster statue of Hercules bashing the

for travel beyond a citizen’s district. After spend-

Hydra of federalism while standing astride a

ing a night in Champrosay and passing through

mountain at Les Invalides. The festival culminated

the Sénart forest, the trio arrived at Fontainebleau,

in an oath sworn to the constitution of 1793 at the

where they set up camp near some rocks. Realizing

Champ de Mars. The regeneration promised by

that they were running low on provisions, they

38

39

146

On that day of unity and indivisibility, as work-

such collective gatherings was increasingly accom-

traveled to a nearby village on August 10, which

panied by acts of annihilation. The same day that

happened to be the day of the festival. Just after he

the festivalgoers processed through Paris and the

had devoured an omelet, a group of vigilant citizens

monuments erected to the “natural history” of

demanded to see Brongniart’s papers. Considered

the Revolution, the National Convention sanc-

suspect for camping on the day of a national

tioned the destruction and desecration of royal

festival, he was sent to jail in Nemours, where he

tombs. In the days leading up to the Fête de l’Unité

remained under arrest for five days after being

et de l’Indivisibilité, workers dug up the royal

accused of taking an unauthorized countryside trip.

Luxury After the terror

His cousin, the chemist Antoine-​François Fourcroy,

on in a portrait of the seven-​year-​old by the family

whom we will encounter again in Paris later in this

friend and sculptor, Jean-​Antoine Houdon, and

chapter, sprang him from jail. This was not the last

evidenced by the youthful expeditions that defied

time that Brongniart’s herborizing would land him

(however innocently) revolutionary protocols. His

in trouble with the Committee of Public Safety. Less

mother’s hopes were dashed when an insatiable

than a year later, he was jailed once more when he

curiosity led him to an interest in the pure sciences,

42

unwisely decided to go hunting for botanical speci-

studying the methods of Carl Linnaeus and under-

mens in the southwest of France while stationed

taking experiments in chemistry. He was par-

as an army pharmacist in the Haute-​Pyrénées

ticularly entranced by Antoine Lavoisier’s recent

border town of Barèges. Bored, Brongniart had

experiments regarding the theory of combustion.

encountered an older botanist named Pierre-​



Auguste-​Marie Broussonet, with whom he agreed

Brongniart traveled extensively during the

to travel to the mountain town of Gavarnie to col-

Revolution. At a time when young architects and

lect specimens on July 18, 1794, just days before the

artists went to Rome to study antiquities, he chose

journée of 9 Thermidor overthrew Robespierre in

instead to travel to England for three months,

Paris. Gavarnie was, at the time, at the frontier with

where he encountered naturalists in London,

the Spanish army, and, unbeknownst to Brongniart,

observed the lead and coal mines in Derbyshire,

Broussonet had decided to defect to the Spanish

and studied flour mills powered by steam engines;

side. Brongniart and another companion who had

he traveled mostly on foot. Upon his return to

remained on the French side were declared suspects

France, Brongniart trudged once again on foot

due to the fugitive and placed in jail in Pau, where

throughout southwest France as an army phar-

he remained for months until his Paris connections

macist and undertook expeditions in Normandy

finally had him freed.

as part of the newly formed Corps des Mines,



a body of mining engineers tasked with discover-

43

In spite of an insatiable curiosity that landed

An acute observer with a wanderlust,

him in jail, Brongniart’s political proclivities were

ing new mining deposits and natural resources

decidedly in favor of the Revolution, perhaps more

that would benefit the nation at war. Visiting a

so than any other individual in this book. The son

vast range of mines for lead, iron, and copper,

of one of the ancien régime’s most famous archi-

Brongniart also managed to squeeze in a hike up

tects, Brongniart’s early path proved much more

Mont Blanc with the famous mineralogist Déodat

meandering than that of his father’s disciplined

Gratet de Dolomieu.45 Along the way, he collected

character, though he certainly benefited from

specimens of all sorts. While in Dieppe, the same

the social connections of the illustrious archi-

coastal town where the goldsmith Auguste had

tect, which came in handy at particularly difficult

sought to ship his crates off to Haiti, the young

moments. His mother had initially hoped that her

Brongniart discovered and evidently pocketed

son would become a doctor, carrying on the line

examples of seaweed, insects, and fish.46

of pharmacists on his father’s side of the family. Yet



his own parents described the young Brongniart

adventures was undergoing considerable changes,

as distracted and reckless, a quality captured early

in no small part as a result of the Revolution’s

44

Geology at the time of Brongniart’s unlikely

Alexandre Brongniart

147

military expansion into terrains far beyond its for-

at the Société philomathique. Alongside courses at

mer borders. As Brongniart’s case reveals, the disci-

the newly established École des Mines and infor-

pline emerged in tandem with the reconnaissance

mal lessons in chemistry led by his uncle, in 1788,

missions undertaken to chart military routes and

Brongniart became a founding member of the

assess and extract France’s natural resources. For

voluntary society, where young men gathered

much of the eighteenth century, mineralogy had

to discuss recent developments in the sciences

consisted primarily of three branches: the study

and to conduct experiments in a range of topics

of collections, geognosy, and geology. The first

that included natural history, anatomy, physics,

consisted of studying rocks and minerals along-

chemistry, math, and archaeology. After the end of

side shells and fossils, provided by a far-​ranging

the Royal Academy of Sciences, informal organi-

network of scientific correspondents from around

zations provided a gathering place for savants to

the globe, in collections assembled in museums or

share the findings of rigorous scientific research.49

curiosity cabinets, as seen in the watercolor image

Alert, cunning, and opportunistic, Cuvier, who

by François Louis Swebach-​Desfontaines (the

had been working as a tutor for a Lutheran family

father of the artist and engraver who would gain

in Normandy, arrived in Paris at the beginning

fame during the Revolution). He depicted rock

of 1795, after 9 Thermidor signaled the end of the

samples as if they had been placed within a display,

Terror.50 The move marked the beginning of a

emphasizing the aesthetic differences to be found

long career in the French sciences that culminated

in a comparison of the color, texture, and forma-

during the Restoration in fierce debates about evo-

tions of each specimen (plate 23). Fossils, like min-

lution that pitted him against his former mentor

erals, were studied in terms of their formal charac-

and later archrival Etienne Geoffroy Saint-​Hilaire.51

teristics, without regard to their placement within

He joined the newly established Muséum, which

a larger stratigraphic context. Geognosy, or the

replaced the king’s natural history collection, as a

study of rock formations, was, as Martin Rudwick

suppléant, or understudy, to the old professor of

notes, a structural science, “primarily concerned

animal anatomy, Jean-​Claude Mertrud, and also

with the structural relations of rock masses,” with

became a member of the Société philomathique,

the aim of providing sources that would be useful

where he befriended Brongniart. The latter wrote

to the mining industry.48 At that moment, the term

dejectedly of his friend’s superior talent for dis-

“geology” consisted primarily of speculative theo-

section in his journal on March 18, 1795, “Cuvier

ries of the Earth, which built systems without close

comes in the morning. We dissect a cuttlefish

scrutiny of either specimens or rock formations.

together. He saw everything that I saw. I abandon

Brongniart’s experience in undertaking scientific

this work.”52 As the dissection incident reveals,

fieldwork made him a key asset in the discoveries

Cuvier had begun his scientific research on marine

made by his friend and collaborator, Cuvier, at the

fauna and invertebrates before turning his atten-

Muséum d’Histoire naturelle.

tion to mammals and their fossilized remains.53





47

148

The two budding scientists first encountered

Just as Brongniart’s fieldwork was under-

each other in Paris, just as the Directory govern-

taken while employed in the revolutionary army,

ment sought to erase the memories of Robespierre

Cuvier benefited from the military plundering

Luxury After the terror

Fig. 56 Georges Cuvier, figure of the jaw of an Indian elephant and the fossil jaw of a mammoth, from Mémoires de l’Institut des Sciences et des Arts, vol. 2, 1799. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

that brought European treasures from afar to the

alongside shells, minerals, taxidermied animals,

Muséum d’Histoire naturelle. A year after his

and, among other things, porcelain, as rarities.55

arrival in Paris, Cuvier created a sensation at the

However, displayed as mere fragments of fantasti-

inaugural public lecture of the Institut national,

cal beasts, no one had sought to systematically

the organization that replaced the Royal Academy

reconstruct the fossilized remains of creatures

of the ancien régime, where, on April 4, 1796,

and to picture their former existence as proof

he presented his discoveries on “the species of

of a world before man. Cuvier used his skills in

elephants, both living and fossil.” A year earlier,

comparative anatomy to show not only that the

looted goods from Belgium and the royal collec-

two elephants were distinct species but also that

tions at the Hague had been distributed among

they both differed from another set of elephant-​

Paris’s public museums, which included the natu-

like bones belonging to a creature that was no

ral history institution. A total of 150 crates of speci-

longer extant (fig. 56). This comparison led him to

mens were unloaded at the museum; they included

conclude that such facts “seem to me to prove the

two elephant skulls from the Cape of Good Hope

existence of a world previous to ours, destroyed

and Ceylon. This made it possible for Cuvier to

by some kind of catastrophe. But what was this

compare the two skulls with earlier elephant fossils

primitive earth? What was this nature that was not

from Siberia in the collection. Fossils, of course,

subject to man’s dominion? And what revolution

had been studied in the natural history cabinets

was able to wipe it out to the point of leaving no

of antiquarians and collectors, who placed them

trace of it except some half-​decomposed bones?”56

54

Alexandre Brongniart

149



Published in scientific journals, including

the Bulletin de la Société philomathique, Cuvier’s

the sublime had already reconfigured much of the discursive landscape and collective imagination

research represented a novel approach to the study

of eighteenth-​century France. Revolutionary ter-

of fossils.57 It built upon the previous work of

ror, Ronald Schechter writes, depended on prior

naturalists such as Johann Friedrich Blumenbach

cultural understandings of sublime nature that had

and William Hunter. However, two features

developed over the course of the Enlightenment

distinguished his approach. By describing fos-

period. By the end of the century, radical ora-

sils as nature’s “documents” or “archives,” Cuvier

tors relied upon a lexicon of terror-​laced terms to

introduced a language of antiquarianism and the

persuasively describe just policies and beautiful

possibility of reconstructing the Earth’s history in

laws because the public already understood terror

a manner similar to the ways in which monuments

as a word that encompassed aesthetic, cultural,

were used to resurrect the antique past. Cuvier’s

and political dimensions.58 As a consequence,

theory transformed the Earth into a natural

it was natural to turn to the language of sublime

archive, where each object and its placement,

catastrophe in order to conceptualize the sudden

as well as the ground itself laid the foundations

and abrupt transformations that took place in the

for a natural history that could be documented

physical landscape of Paris before the arrival of

and knowable. The subsequent discovery of fossil

man. When Cuvier presented his theory of extinc-

bones of an extinct creature in the nearby gypsum

tion to the public at the Institut national in 1796,

quarries of Montmartre led him to the realiza-

his depictions of a destroyed world that left noth-

tion that their location in the ground played a

ing behind “except some half-​decomposed bones”

crucial role in reconstructing the Earth’s history.

would have resonated with an audience that had

Understanding how rock formations determined

only recently experienced and witnessed the effects

the historical strata of a particular fossil required

of the Terror firsthand. Though he himself did

fieldwork, a type of study that was in many ways

not espouse the radical ideology of the Jacobins,

inimical to his scientific inclinations. In order to

the political language of the period infiltrated the

begin understanding and mapping the terrains

antiquarian desire to reconstruct the past, along

of Paris, Cuvier turned to his wanderlust friend

with the catastrophic visions of a universal revolu-

Brongniart, who had recently been appointed

tion “on the surface of the globe.” It would not

the head of Sèvres and begun digging in the

have been difficult for the inhabitants of Paris to

city’s terrain in search of raw materials to make

picture what this ancient disaster on the surface of

porcelain.

the globe had looked like, for the city retained the architectural scars left behind by the recent acts of violence and destruction.

Porcelain, Paris, and Posterity



Before returning to consider Brongniart’s

revival of the Sèvres manufactory and his geologi-

150

The remapping of Paris by Cuvier and Brongniart

cal research with Cuvier, it is worth describing the

in the postrevolutionary period was made pos-

context of Paris in the Directory period, where

sible by the fact that the language of terror and

industry, the sciences, and the arts converged to

Luxury After the terror

create an atmosphere of experimentation born



out of the rapidly changing circumstances of the

based in Paris, Dihl et Guérhard had begun

nation’s capital. The Paris-​based manufactory of

during the ancien régime as a rather modest

Dihl et Guérhard was exemplary in this respect.

enterprise that was seen as a cheaper alterna-

Located just down the street from the Temple

tive to Sèvres. The factory was established on

prison where the royal family had been incarcer-

February 25, 1781, through an acte de société

ated, it channeled the anxious language of extinc-

(partnership contract) signed by the porcelain

tion into a turbulent new aesthetic that challenged

modeler Christophe Erasimus Dihl, the Paris

the porcelain forms that had been upheld as stan-

bourgeois Antoine Guérhard, and Guérhard’s

dards of perfection at Sèvres. Take, for example,

wife, Louise-​Françoise-​Madeleine Croizé, in order

a plate made by the manufactory during the

“to handle the manufacture and marketing of any

revolutionary period. Shells are shown washed up

porcelain that may come from the factory that

on a murky shore, surrounded by misty weather

Sieur Dihl proposes to establish.”59 An immigrant

(plate 24). They appear to have been violently

from Neustadt in the Palatinate who arrived in

displaced on the shore, in a landscape defined

France in 1778, Dihl, a modeler, had a specialist’s

by the unsettling chill of the finely painted mist in

knowledge of the chemical processes needed to

the background, a mottled effect reminiscent of

manage a porcelain factory, although his foreign

David’s painting of the adolescent martyr Joseph

status and lack of capital made it impossible for

Bara cast upon the dappled ground. Reading

him to strike out on his own. Monsieur Guérhard’s

David’s unfinished brushwork as a signal of what

status as an official bourgeois of Paris allowed the

has been described as the Revolution’s politics of

company to be established inside the city; Dihl

provisionality, its displacement onto the Dihl et

oversaw production, while Madame Guérhard was

Guérhard plate is both a deliberate gesture toward

manager of the firm, looking after the company’s

the painting practices taking place outside of the

books and the day-​to-​day running of the fac-

purely decorative context of porcelain and perhaps

tory (duties that echoed those of the goldsmith

a tacit acknowledgment of the ways in which the

Auguste’s wife, Madeleine-​Julie Coustou). In 1782

politics of the period had nearly rendered luxury

the factory obtained the protection of the duc

extinct. The shells could be read as the remains

d’Angoulême, nephew of Louis XVI, enabling it

of a world previous to ours, destroyed by some

to stamp its wares “Manufacture de Monsieur le

kind of ancient catastrophe. Within the immedi-

duc d’Angoulême,” a mark that can be found on its

ate geographic context of Paris, the newfound

early productions. Angoulême’s name functioned

emphasis on the alliances between art, industry,

as a brand franchise licensed to the firm that gave

technology, and the sciences made it possible for a

the company greater visibility. By 1785, the factory

porcelain manufacturer not only to have an aware-

employed twelve sculptors and thirty painters,

ness of the latest developments in science, includ-

and in 1787 the growing firm moved from the rue

ing the theory of extinction that Cuvier had shared

de Bondy to a larger space at the hôtel Bergeret,

with the public at the Institut national, but to use

a property that was once located at the junction of

such ideas as haunting forms of design.

the rue du Temple and the rue Meslay.

Like many of the private porcelain firms

Alexandre Brongniart

151



As an affordable alternative to Sèvres, the

firm’s porcelain wares appealed to frugal foreign

of the Terror, change arrived at the Paris factory

visitors such as Gouverneur Morris, who went to

when Antoine Guérhard died and Dihl mar-

Paris as part diplomat, part buying agent for the

ried the widow Guérhard, officially changing the

new American president, George Washington. His

factory mark to Dihl et Guérhard. That summer,

demonstrated tastes for porcelain veered toward

workers arrived from the Niderviller faience and

the plain, as indicated by the service he purchased

porcelain manufactory, after its owner, the comte

in 1790 from the comte de Moustier, decorated

de Custine, at one point a celebrated military hero

with nothing more than gilded dent-​de-​loup bor-

of the Revolution, had been guillotined.62

ders. A number of the replacement pieces added



to Washington’s service had actually been sup-

the innovator of the factory, in the midst of the

plied by the manufactory of the duc d’Angoulême

groundbreaking scientific discoveries and devel-

(fig. 57). While in Paris, Morris chose on behalf

opments of the period, which were now open

of the new American president a surtout de table,

to the public through the myriad institutions

or centerpiece, of biscuit figures, along with vases

that replaced the royal academies of the ancien

by the manufactory for Washington’s official

régime. The Institut national des sciences et arts,

residence. He carefully coached the president in

established in 1795, played host to new research

matters of taste, writing, “I think it of very great

undertaken by ambitious young men like Cuvier,

60

Being in the center of Paris placed Dihl,

Importance to fix the Taste of our Country prop-

while painters of genres formerly considered

erly, and I think your Example will go very far in

marginal filled the Paris Salon. Dihl recruited a

that Respect. It is therefore my Wish that every

number of the most successful artists of the period

Thing about you should be substantially good and

to work at the firm. In addition to hiring former

majestically plain; made to endure.” Populated

painters from Sèvres, such as Étienne-​Charles

with white and gold plates and white biscuit

Le Guay, Dihl worked with the engraver Jacques-

figures, the plainness of Washington’s dinner table

François Swebach-​Desfontaines, the landscape

formed a remarkable contrast to the lavish service

painter Jean-​Louis Demarne, and the genre painter

that Louis XVI had commissioned yet off of which

Martin Drolling, all of whom were painted by

he had never managed to dine.

Louis-​Léopold Boilly in the gathering of artists at



From the tabula rasa of taste found in the

the atelier of Jean-​Baptiste Isabey. Just as industrial

American president’s penchant for a dignified

arts like porcelain were held on the same footing as

plainness, Dihl et Guérhard quickly distinguished

the fine arts and sciences, Dihl, in a similar man-

its wares from Sèvres after its former royal rival

ner, considered his work with such artists to be a

was left on the brink of extinction. With the end

collaborative endeavor.

of Sèvres’s royal privilege on porcelain, private



61

152

restricted to Sèvres alone. In 1793, in the midst

In Paris, porcelain was transformed from

manufacturers in Paris fired objects at unprec-

an aristocratic collectible to an experimental

edented rates and decorated wares with ample

medium of national interest, shaped in large part

gilding, brilliant enamels and glazes, and sculp-

by Dihl’s contributions as an entrepreneur, inven-

tural forms, all of which had previously been

tor, and scientific innovator. A central moment

Luxury After the terror

Fig. 57 Duc d’Angoulême Manufactory, dinner plate, 1780–88. Hard-​paste porcelain with gilding, 3.49 × 25.08 cm. Purchase, 1956, W-2132/F. Mount Vernon Museum. Photo courtesy of Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association.

in his career took place in 1797, when members

had undergone the heat of the kiln. It was espe-

of the Institut national visited the firm to observe

cially difficult to render halftones on porcelain,

his invention of enamel for hard-​paste porcelain

since the delicate hues were especially susceptible

that would not alter when fired, which Régine

“to being destroyed or becoming dry and dull in

de Plinval de Guillebon described as “an event

the fire.”65 Dihl’s invention provided a range of

in the field of porcelain.” On November 16,

stable colors that could be subjected to high firing

1797, Jean Darcet, Antoine-​François Fourcroy

temperatures, which “promise, for the painter of

(the cousin of Brongniart), and Louis-​Bernard

oils, on canvas, and on other bodies, an inalter-

Guyton de Morveau visited the manufactory.

ability and a durability that will be priceless for the

The men had a keen scientific interest in Dihl’s

conservation of paintings.”66 For artists anxious

work, since Darcet had been employed at Sèvres

about the unstable nature of their works, the

as a chemist and both of them had worked with

invention promised the survival of art by provid-

Lavoisier to create the standard nomenclature

ing “the means to immortalize their works and to

for chemistry. The Journal de physique, de chimie,

transmit to posterity the most interesting things

d’histoire naturelle et des arts, which published the

that history and nature could offer.”67 Though

results the following year, described Dihl’s search

the members of the Institute were impressed by the

for a type of enamel paint that would achieve

results, Brongniart himself hardly saw Dihl’s work

“a nuanced palette, composed of colors that would

as an achievement. He later wrote that the German

not be changed at all by vitrification.” Color

entrepreneur had intentionally failed to include

enamels presented problems for the porcelain

any pinks, purples, and violets derived from the

painter, in that one could not know what the

purple of Cassius in the enamels he showed to

hues, composed of crushed and pigmented bits

the Institute members, “which change under the

of minerals and glass, would look like once they

heat whatever the vehicle that carries them.”68

63

64

Alexandre Brongniart

153



In spite of Brongniart’s harsh judgment, the

quest for permanence, inalterability, and durabil-

Wedgwood’s collaborations with the British painter

ity described in Dihl’s enamel invention echoed

but may also have actively sought to emulate (if not

broader anxieties in both the sciences and the arts

surpass) the British entrepreneur, whose products

during the postrevolutionary period. In direct

were popular in Paris during the Revolution.70

opposition to the kinds of ephemera that consti-



tuted the republican arts—including Dugourc’s

attention even though portraiture has gained

set of republican playing cards—Directory Paris

interest among scholars of the French Revolution

sought to reclaim the stability of the past through

eager to document the changes that took place in

its artistic, scientific, and cultural products. A 1797

political identities.71 It is exemplary of what Amy

portrait of Dihl by Le Guay, probably painted to

Freund has described as the collaborative practice

commemorate his invention, not only represented

of portraiture in the picturing of modern self-

a novel form of painting on porcelain but also

hood. Witness in particular the double signature

instantiated the promise of immortality in a stable

of Le Guay and Dihl inscribed on the side of the

medium that would “transmit to posterity the most

secretaire. Dihl felt the need to sign the portrait

interesting things that history and nature could

that had been painted by Le Guay because the

offer,” much in the way that Cuvier’s conception of

painterly support provided an opportunity to

fossils as natural documents conveyed the existence

publicize the hard-​paste porcelain plaque manu-

This exceptional painting has received little

of a prior world (plate 25). In the portrait, the

factured by the Paris firm. This points both to the

inventor and entrepreneur sits before a secretaire

shared production of the work and to the hybrid

with compartments that contain not papers or ink

qualities of the porcelain plaque as a singular work

but jars and cans full of pigments and minerals

of art and reproducible commercial support for

used to make the ground colors and enamels that

painting. While Sèvres had produced porcelain

are painted on a small tablet before him. Of par-

plaques prior to the Revolution, the royal factory

ticular interest is the top of the secretaire, where

had never used them in the portrayal of private cit-

Le Guay has painted a range of Dihl’s products,

izens (and certainly not in the depiction of ambi-

from a vase in imitation agate with a trompe l’oeil

tious rival porcelain manufacturers). Moreover, the

band by the painter Piat-​Joseph Sauvage to a

double signature would have been inconceivable at

yellow-​ground cup to a biscuit figure of a reading

a factory that strongly deterred its decorators from

girl. The sheer range of glazes, finishes, and models

signing their works.

is arresting. The spotted Dalmatian is an unusual



addition to a portrait already crammed full of the

ment of enamels clearly found their way into

products of the inventor and entrepreneur depicted

Sèvres, as suggested in two palettes for soft-​paste

in the painting. The curled dog tucked below

and hard-​paste porcelain created in year VI, the

the desk resembles the spotted leopard that had

very same year that Dihl invited members of the

been painted by George Stubbs in 1777, as the first

Institute to his Paris manufactory (plate 26). The

example of his work rendered on a ceramic plaque

limited palette and murky range of colors found on

provided by Josiah Wedgwood (fig. 58). The visual

the two nuanciers, samplers used to show the range

69

154

quotation suggests that Dihl not only knew of

Luxury After the terror

Anxieties around color and Dihl’s develop-

Fig. 58 George Stubbs, Sleeping Leopard, 1777. Enamel on Wedgwood biscuit earthenware, 10.8 × 16.8 cm. Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection, B2001.2.209. Photo: Yale Center for British Art.

of a manufactory’s enamel colors, indicate Sèvres’s

VI, where they would have encountered Dihl’s

struggles in keeping abreast of the developments

enamels on display again, but this time in the

emerging from Paris and the factory of Dihl et

vibrant plumage of Jacques Barraband’s birds

Guérhard. Sèvres’s hard-​paste lozenge of colors is

(plate 27).72 Exhibited at the Muséum central des

sad-​looking when compared to the vibrant hues

arts, Barraband’s painting on porcelain depicts

contained on the palette in the portrait of Dihl.

exotic specimens—a Chinese golden pheasant,

The barren yellow and brown landscapes contain-

two Brazilian golden parakeets, and an Amazon

ing a funeral urn appear to function as a cipher for

parrot—set against a barren landscape with leafless

the moody scenes that such a limited palette could

tree limbs.73 The rock bobbing in water in the right

achieve.

foreground of the painting once again reminds the



viewer of the double status of the work as both a

One can only imagine the astonishment

and despair that the workers at Sèvres must

piece of porcelain and a painting, containing the

have experienced at the Salon of Thermidor year

signature of the artist’s name accompanied by that

Alexandre Brongniart

155

of the manufactory. The painting helped secure

found its way into the luxury items made in Paris.

Barraband’s reputation as a bird painter. After

The unsettling effects of the period can be seen

making a version of the same composition in an oil

in a pair of storm vases by the manufactory made

painting, Barraband received commissions to work

around 1797–98 (plate 28). In direct contrast to

as an avian specialist contributing to François

the recto–​verso format of vases made at Sèvres,

Levaillant’s natural history of parrots, illustrating

a painted panoramic landscape wraps around

birds for the Description de l’Egypte, and execut-

the circumference of each vase just below the

ing the decoration for Charles Percier and Pierre-​

shoulder. The grisaille vistas of a storm at sea and

François-​Léonard Fontaine’s platinum cabinet for

on land move in a horizontal format that works

Charles IV at the Casa del Labrador in Aranjuez.

against the vertically positioned arabesques layered

In contrast to the lively birds depicted by Sèvres’s

atop the rich yellow ground color, heightened

most celebrated bird painter, Louis-​Denis Armand,

with gilded elements (fig. 59). Although dramatic

during the ancien régime, Barraband’s painting,

weather patterns had been depicted before by

probably based upon taxidermy models, is a rather

artists like Joseph Vernet, in his series of French

stiff, taxonomic depiction of exotic birds that

ports commissioned by Louis XV from 1754 to

seems to hover between life and death. The con-

1765, the potential meanings of such weather had

trast between the brilliant plumage and the barren

considerably changed. The gray-​scale scenes on

landscape almost calls for an allegorical reading,

the vases might be more readily situated along-

as if the birds represent the fashionable Incroyables

side the prints, calendars, and other provisional

and Merveilleuses who reveled in macabre displays

forms of reproduction that proliferated during the

of splendor, attending events such as the bals des

French Revolution and that directly influenced

victimes, dances allegedly held for those whose

the aesthetic changes in the Salon. The heightened

relatives had succumbed to the guillotine, which

sense of movement in the trees, the lack of narra-

both commemorated and sought to efface memo-

tive focal point, and the landscapes’ resemblance

ries of the Terror. Given the brilliant colors and

to exaggerated silhouette imagery of the period

the technically difficult compositions achieved

suggest the likelihood that the porcelain painter

by the artists who worked with Dihl et Guérhard,

had in mind experimental forms of imagery that

it is not hard to see why the art critic Pierre-​Jean-​

pushed against the aesthetic ideals championed

Baptiste Chaussard wrote that in the manufactory’s

during the Enlightenment.

hands, porcelain “is not to be scorned, for it opens



new prospects to industry and the arts, it gives lux-

of windswept trees on a rocky terrain found on

ury a tasteful and elegant character, and expands

the pair of vases were probably original composi-

the domain of art.”

tions painted by the landscape artist Jean-​Baptiste



Coste, who worked at Dihl et Guérhard during the

74

75

76

156

Dihl et Guérhard’s porcelains contain a ner-

The coastal vista and its pendant in the form

vous, tense energy, as if channeling the political

Revolution. Coste executed a number of studies

tumult of the period. Though landscapes were

from the same period that bear a strong resem-

commonly depicted on porcelain decoration, the

blance to the images depicted in such fine detail

discourse of nature as a source of regeneration

on the vases (fig. 60). Trained in Rome during

Luxury After the terror

Fig. 59 Dihl et Guérhard Manufactory, vase with landscape (one of a pair), ca. 1797–98, detail. Photo: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

the ancien régime, Coste eventually published the

Coste reserves the most attention for the depic-

results of his studies in the 1809 publication

tion of trees, stressing that they “must above all be

Cours d’études de paysages, a manual on land-

treated with feeling, and in a manner similar to

scape painting with crayon-​manner engravings.

each particular species.”78 Hence, he emphasizes

Coste’s publication has been grouped as part of

the twisted qualities of the trunk of the holm oak

the didactic manuals intended for students who

tree depicted on plate sixteen, in order to convey

sought to practice depictions of antique-​inspired

its “tormented” form. By contrast, the elongated

landscapes, one of the many publications that

downward sloping branches of the weeping willow

emerged in the early part of the nineteenth

depicted on plate thirty-nine suggest its melan-

century. Though he incorporated the numerous

cholic aspect, and Coste notes that “one generally

Italian structures he had seen in his publication,

places them with tombs.”79 The weeping willow

77

Alexandre Brongniart

157

Fig. 60 (left) Jean-​Baptiste Coste, figures resting in a wooded landscape, 1794. Pen and ink and watercolor on card with painted frame border, 26.75 × 37.75 cm. Photo courtesy of Martel Maides Auctions. Fig. 61 (below) Jean-​Baptiste Coste, Jacques Marchand (engraver), Saule Pleureur (with hidden silhouettes of Louis XVI, MarieAntoinette, and the Dauphin). Crayon-​manner engraving, 37 × 49 cm. Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris. Photo: BnF.

conjures the trees with hidden silhouettes. He had

of Sèvres porcelain, the forms are old and they

actually issued a nearly identical print with the

displease her; do you think it would be possible to

royal profiles present (fig. 61). Given what we know

get her something from the Temple manufac-

of Coste’s views on the emotive possibilities of

tory that would be of a more modern and purer

landscapes and trees from his drawing manual, the

taste?”80 English aristocrats such as William

compositions on the Dihl et Guérhard vases take

Beckford also purchased Paris porcelain, and, even

on a more symbolic aspect, as if they participated

though George IV maintained a fascination for

in the melancholy vision of nature that emerged

ancien régime examples of Sèvres, he also acquired

after the Terror. Shed of their classical references

works from the Paris factory.81 Dihl et Guérhard

and Arcadian guises, the landscapes depicted on

thus churned out luxury for the Spanish court and

Dihl et Guérhard’s porcelain functioned as elo-

English aristocrats during the Directory period

quent disquisitions on the subject of what arrives

as, after the Terror, the delirious return of fashion

in the aftermath of revolution.

and luxury was celebrated. Yet given the paranoia



Of course, it is possible to read too much

of surveillance and subsistence that had character-

meaning and intentionality into porcelain objects

ized the Terror, when any symbol of despotism—

that were ultimately made for those who could

no matter how small—had to be removed, luxury

afford to spend on costly luxury items. Dihl et

objects and even quotidian forms of plates and

Guérhard actively competed with Sèvres in solicit-

cups retained an air of precarity.

ing a distinguished clientele that included not



only the president of the United States but also the

channel both the desire for novelty and “some-

crowned heads of Europe. Alongside developing a

thing different” and the anxieties that accom-

robust export market to England, the Paris-​based

panied a society seeking to escape the traumas

factory produced a number of its most lavish and

of the recent past. For the same years that saw

expensive works of art for foreign courts, includ-

the return of fashion and luxury also marked

ing that of Charles IV, who was a target for several

a period of intense political uncertainty. From

self-​exiled French luxury producers, including

the outset, the Directory confronted multiple

Dugourc (as we saw in chapter 3). Moreover, the

obstacles, from the quelling of popular upris-

exchange of porcelain as diplomatic gifts con-

ings led by Gracchus Babeuf and the Conspiracy

tinued after 1789, suggesting the ancien régime’s

of the Equals to the “White Terror” of royalist

rituals of civility persisted after the Terror. Then,

revolts that swept through the provinces bent on

too, the love of novelty remained fashionable,

seeking revenge. Where the promise of the future

as Charles-​Jean-​Marie Alquier discovered when

brought an obsession with new beginnings in 1789,

he became France’s newly appointed ambas-

the Thermidorian Reaction was energized by the

sador to Spain. In a letter from 1800 to Foreign

urgent desire to bring the revolutionary process to

Minister Charles-​Maurice de Talleyrand-​Périgord,

an end. It was marked, too, by a period of collec-

he requested the work of Dihl et Guérhard, writing

tive mourning. Porcelain made in Paris could not

that “The queen already has in her cabinets a lot

help but look somewhat somber.

In the postrevolutionary period, luxury could

Alexandre Brongniart

159

Regeneration at Sèvres

to choose a “chemist” such as Brongniart to bring energy to the government support of the indus-

160

In 1800, Brongniart took over Sèvres at a turning

trial arts. Though he was encouraged early on to

point in both the naturalist’s career and the political

undertake experiments on a variety of materials

trajectory of postrevolutionary France; Napoleon’s

alongside that of porcelain production, Brongniart

coup of 18 Brumaire, year VIII (November 9,

encountered nearly insurmountable obstacles at

1799), had brought the Directory period to an end

Sèvres. The workers had not been paid since the

and consolidated power in the general’s hands.82

ancien régime and the material resources had been

Napoleon’s brother Lucien, a former Jacobin and

completely depleted. In order to generate enough

supporter of Robespierre who was instrumental in

money to pay the workers and suppliers, Brongniart

staging the coup, took over as minister of the inte-

sold off the old pieces in the manufactory “that

rior during the Consulate, before the First Consul

encumber our warehouses and harm the manufac-

sent him off to serve as the ambassador to Spain

tory by suggesting to visitors that it still produces

in the fall of 1800, a result of simmering politi-

these gothic things.”84 In an echo of the government

cal tensions between the two brothers that would

sales of the royal collections, Brongniart organized

eventually lead Lucien to go into exile. More so

another sale, arranged through the marchands de

than Napoleon, he had a direct hand in appointing

curiosités Lignereux and Coquille, who helped to

Brongniart as the head of the ailing porcelain man-

ship the old models off to buyers abroad.85

ufactory, which he had been tasked with overseeing.



In a letter sent to the manufactory’s then directors

elimination of soft-​paste production subsequently

on May 17, 1800, Lucien envisioned restoring the

proved the most controversial. Expensive and out-

past glory of the former royal manufactory so that it

dated, soft-​paste production was viewed, like the

would set an example for other private firms (which

old stock Brongniart sold off to refresh the manu-

undoubtedly included Dihl et Guérhard chief

factory, as epitomizing “the aesthetic excesses asso-

among them): “The fabrication of porcelain is fully

ciated with the rococo.”86 From a technical view-

established in France, and in upholding it at Sèvres

point, the decision to end soft-​paste production

my primary view has been to make it an object

would prove costly; Antoine d’Albis has argued that

of emulation for private establishments. Thus any

from a scientific perspective, its end “effectively

future work undertaken should serve to advance

doomed an entire body of expertise. . . . The

this fabrication; but to implement this project it

knowledge needed for success had been relegated

seemed to me that a chemist should direct the

to oblivion. The body of work that had been the

manufactory. . . . Citizen Brongniart will concern

foundation of Sèvres’s prestige both at home and

himself not only with things pertaining to the fabri-

abroad in the eighteenth century proved impossible

cation of porcelain; in addition, he will also perform

to duplicate.”87 Nonetheless, many of Brongniart’s

experiments relating to glassware and pottery.”83 For

early decisions to wipe the slate clean at Sèvres and

Bonaparte, the key to reviving the factory rested

to clear the material remainders of the past from

not in artistic innovations or business acumen but

the manufactory echoed the policies of the new

in advancing scientific progress; hence his decision

Consulate government under Napoleon, which

Luxury After the terror

Among other cost-​cutting measures, the

sought to sever its ties to the recent past by declar-



ing that the constitution of year VIII marked the

his own wealth of knowledge in geology and the

official end to the “principles” of the Revolution.

natural sciences to introduce decorative motifs that



replaced the jewel-​like tones and brilliant enamels

88

While paying off the old, accumulated debts

Alongside his father, Brongniart drew upon

occupied a considerable amount of the young

used in the production of soft-​paste porcelain. The

director’s time, Brongniart also sought new models,

factory began to recreate mineralogical specimens

designs, and decorative motifs that would revital-

using trompe l’oeil techniques, which blurred the

ize the manufactory and signal a stylistic rupture

line between scientific specimen and porcelain

with the past. He formally requested the minister

facsimile. Rich hardstones, such as sardonyx, agate,

of the interior to eliminate the positions of artistes-​

and carnelian, replaced the more stylized forms of

en-​chef, deciding instead to ask for drawings and

caillouté (pebbled) and marbré (marbled) decora-

designs from individuals working outside of the

tion used on soft-​paste porcelain. Cups and saucers

manufactory. Doing so, he argued, would allow

resembled carved and chiseled forms of stone, seen

him to “renew the forms of the Sèvres manufactory

in an example from around 1804 to 1805 (fig. 62).

which is reproached for not having kept up with the

Painted in rust red shot through with light brown

progress of the arts.”89 Brongniart’s personal connec-

veins and framed by a gilded rim, the surface simu-

tions to the artistic world based in Paris provided

lates the rich effects of porphyry and provides evi-

him with enough confidence that the director was

dence of a gifted porcelain painter nimbly willing

able to issue a public statement declaring the new

his paintbrush to perform a trompe l’oeil play on

status of Sèvres porcelain: “The greatest possible

durability in creating a veined and meaty texture

effort has been made to emulate the antique and

that belies the dainty hard-​paste porcelain body it

keep in step with advancing taste. The advice and

covers. Meanwhile, with the service iconographique

work of the most skillful artists in Paris have been

grec gifted to Cardinal Fesch, Napoleon’s uncle,

turned to account for these different genres.”90

painters conveyed the translucent effects of antique



gemstone cameos within borders that imitated

Digging into the antique past provided the

means for postrevolutionary reinvention. The

lapis lazuli, as if the plates had not been fired but

excavation of classical antiquity brought new per-

carved from an adamantine material (fig. 63).

spective to recent events. Percier, one of Napoleon’s



official architects and a proponent of a more

porate the imitation of natural specimens; Dihl

restrained version of antiquity, supplied designs

had already pioneered the agate-​effect porcelain

inspired by recent archaeological discoveries and

vases and wares. However, the reproduction of

the classical monuments he had studied in Rome.

mineral specimens had great personal meaning

Brongniart’s own father also offered a wide variety

for Brongniart, whose pockets had once been

of models for antique-​inspired monumental vases,

stuffed with samples he picked up while traipsing

Egyptian-​style plates, and a “Paestum” teapot to

through the mountains of France and the British

his son, demonstrating the influence that archi-

countryside in his youth, and who, despite hopes

tects, rather than sculptors, had at Sèvres after the

for a career in the hard sciences (and much to

Revolution.

the chagrin of his mother), had been passed up

91

92

Sèvres was not the first factory to incor-

Alexandre Brongniart

161

Fig. 62 Sèvres Manufactory, cup and saucer, 1804–5. Hard-​paste porcelain with enamel decoration and gilding, 7.6 cm (cup diam.), 13.2 cm (saucer diam.). Purchase, The Charles E. Sampson Memorial Fund, and Gift of Mrs. Herbert N. Straus, by exchange, 1989, 1989.295.1, .2. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Photo: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

for academic positions at the Muséum in favor of

for porcelain coincided with less salutary forms

his friend and sometime rival Cuvier and forced

of digging that took place in the aftermath of

to settle instead for a position at Sèvres in order to

the Terror: the burial of the dead. Raw materials

support his family. Nevertheless, Brongniart’s deci-

and corpses often inhabited the same contested

sion to work at Sèvres proved prescient, for there

grounds of the city. The rotting corpse came to

he combined his love of experimentation and field-

replace the figure of Hercules in the postrevolu-

work with the practical aims of state-​sponsored

tionary political imaginary of Paris, as the con-

industry. Returning to the wanderlust work of his

crete realities of death supplanted the celebratory

youth, he scoured the local terrain near Sèvres in

festivals and sublime language of nature that had

search of raw material, particularly kaolin, to sup-

formerly reshaped the commemorative spaces

ply the manufactory. The search for local resources

of the city. Overcrowded cemeteries and mass

became even more urgent during the Continental

graves threatened the living with putrid smells

Blockade in 1806, when Napoleon cut off British

and unsightly, heap-​like mounds of dead bod-

trade routes and sought to ramp up domestic pro-

ies covered with quicklime. Corpses “saturated”

duction of commercial goods in France.

already overcrowded graves, while former pleasure gardens designed for wealthy speculators, such as the Parc Monceau, became makeshift graveyards.93

Fragile Terrains

As early as 1792, the September Massacres had left behind corpses that had to be quickly buried.

162

Brongniart’s fieldwork exploring the terrains of

Makeshift mass graves scattered across five differ-

Paris in search of raw materials such as kaolin

ent burial sites within the city walls, including the

Luxury After the terror

Fig. 63 Sèvres Manufactory, Jean-​ Marie DeGault (decorator), plate with cameo portrait of Moschion, 1811–18. Hard-​paste porcelain with enamel decoration and gilding, 23.8 cm (diam.). The Charles E. Sampson Memorial Fund, 1989, 1989.84. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Photo: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Paris catacombs, provided a temporary solution to

make space for the dead.96 A series of government

the problem. One visitor from Bordeaux vividly

reports issued from 1794 to 1796 revealed problems

described a scene where “at every step you can see

of overcrowding and hygiene alongside horrific

94

the hideous and bloody remains of mutilated bod-

burial practices. These dire conditions prompted

ies in open graves. I saw for my part, seven of these

public proposals for new cemeteries and burial

graves, filled with more corpses than they could

grounds that would restore a sense of respect for

hold; the horrifying carts left trails of blood in

the dead.

their wake; the image of death and of the massacre



was present everywhere and in the most terrifying

tine had often overshadowed broader collective

ways.”95 Alongside the disinterment of royal tombs

anxieties about who should be accorded a right

that formed part of the strategy of eliminating the

to be commemorated and publicly mourned and,

memory of France’s despotic past, the question

on a more practical level, where the dead should

of how to commemorate the remains of the dead

be laid to rest. More than factories, cemeteries

after the dissolution of the church became central

presented a major problem for the city with the

to public debates on dechristianization and how to

mounting number of bodies that required burial

The widely publicized deaths by guillo-

Alexandre Brongniart

163

after a succession of violent journées, such as the

government commissioned him to design a new

journée of August 10. Along with the transforma-

cemetery that would eventually become known as

tion of church property into biens nationaux,

Père-​Lachaise. He was not the only architect with

cemeteries that had formerly been overseen by the

ideas on how to reshape Paris through its funereal

church gave way to mass graves, which, accord-

spaces. In 1798, Pierre Giraud, an architect for the

ing to Richard Etlin, “contained several hundred

prisons of the Department of the Seine, published

to over a thousand corpses.” As government

a proposal for an unusual cemetery in Les tom-

officials scrambled to find suitable sites for bury-

beaux, ou Essai sur les sépultures (republished in

ing Paris’s dead, proposals were made to create

1801).

vast “fields of rest” where the dead could reside in



tranquil parks that would enable the melancholy

took luxury, it is worth dwelling on his text.

contemplation of death instead of the gruesome

Giraud opened his essay by invoking the Manes,

spectacle of decaying bodies in the middle of the

the ancient Roman spirits of the dead, in order to

street. Provisional cemeteries were established at

exclaim “that all of humanity penetrates into this

Monceau, Clamart, Vaugirard, and the Hôpital

unwavering truth: that any individual who does

de la Charité.98 A new cemetery opened at the

not respect the dead, is close to assassinating the

Place de Clichy, just under Montmartre, in 1798.

living.”100 The architect compared the funeral prac-

Far from offering a picturesque landscape strewn

tices of the ancients and the moderns, followed by

with elegiac ruins, Montmartre quickly became so

a proposal for what he described as a “process for

appalling that in 1802 one official wrote, “This is

dissolving the flesh, cremating [calciner] human

not a cemetery, it is an abyss.” The same year that

bones, converting them into an indestructible

the cemetery at Montmartre opened, the remains

substance, and composing from them medallions

of an animal were recovered in the nearby gypsum

of each individual.”101 Following a brief compari-

quarries. These unusual remains became of central

son of the different burial practices among ancient

interest to Cuvier, who had pondered the discov-

Egyptians and Jews, the author contemplated the

ery of shells, mollusks, and other marine creatures

Roman practice of burying individuals in lav-

in the earthly strata of Paris and its environs.

ish tombs, practicing cremation, and placing the



human ashes in urns “of different materials; they

97

99

164

The public proposals for new burial sites

Because of the macabre ends to which Giraud

reflected a broader shift in the funeral culture of

were of copper, gold, silver, alabaster, porphyry,

the period, from religious monuments intended

marble, and terracotta.”102 Shifting his attention to

to instill fear in the living, toward secular Elysian

modern-​day practices, Giraud discusses the burial

fields, where the dead were laid to rest in an

rites of Catholics, Protestants, “Muscovites,” and

“eternal sleep.” Antiquity, despite its invocation as

Muslims, before ending with the North American

a source of stylistic renewal at the Sèvres manu-

Indians, who he claims were far more reveren-

factory in the hands of talented architects and

tial for their dead than what he calls the ultra-​

designers, was also tied to visions of death in the

revolutionary modern “Vendales [sic]” of France,

city. In 1804, while Brongniart’s father was busy

who “opened and abandoned tombs, trampled

supplying designs for porcelain to Sèvres, the

underfoot and threw about the sad remains of

Luxury After the terror

Fig. 64 Pierre Giraud, plan of proposed funerary monument, from Essai sur les sépultures, 1801. Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris. Photo: BnF.

your ancestors.”103 The architectural proposal that

the central monument would feature a gallery

concludes the book features a vast burial ground

of glass columns made from human remains

that would encompass a field of rest, including

“taken from the old abandoned cemeteries”; the

a pyramidal furnace in the center, surrounded

remaining columns would be made from the most

by a “hall of immortality,” where the remains of

durable stone (fig. 64).104 Such a project had the

the dead would inspire the living to virtue. The

principal advantage of eliminating “the fear of the

architect suggested three possible sites for new

putrid and pestilential emanations that present

burial grounds—one near the Place de l’Étoile (the

tombs emit, especially mass graves, which were

location of the modern-​day Champs Élysées), the

only imagined from ignorance and barbarism.”105

second at the hill of Montparnasse, and the final



one at Buttes-​Chaumont near Belleville (then on

of transforming human remains into structural

the outskirts of Paris). Surrounded by a deep pit,

pieces of glass—indicates that the industrial arts

The material specificity of Giraud’s project—

Alexandre Brongniart

165

could be harnessed to new commemorative ends.

more literal sense, the city’s foundations pro-

Giraud’s proposal was actually based on the ideas

vided the fertile site upon which scientists such as

of the German chemist Johann Joachim Becher,

Cuvier and Brongniart could hypothesize about

who had argued before the Revolution that

ancient and alternative histories that predated

“human remains could be saved from the hor-

the arrival of its human inhabitants and human

rors of putrefaction by being transformed into a

dramas, and prove such theories by sampling the

beautiful, imperishable, luminous glass.”

106

Inspired

ter with a consideration of Cuvier and Brongniart’s

sented to the public by a founder named Gautier,

most significant collaborative work, Essai sur la

the chemist Dufourni allegedly undertook the

géographie minéralogique des environs de Paris, for

experiment of transforming human remains into

the ways in which it resituated porcelain within

glass around 1796, just two years before the Paris

a broader landscape where both natural history

porcelain manufacturer Dihl began his trials for

and human catastrophe formed part of the same

creating a new method of making stained glass.

fragmented and ruinous composition.

Solid glass columns, or what could be described as



an architecture of transparency (one, by the way,

rons de Paris resulted from fieldwork that Cuvier

long predating Le Corbusier’s fetishistic invocation

and Brongniart had undertaken to map the earthly

of glass as the medium of modern architecture)

terrain around Paris beginning in 1806, enlisting

functioned in this instance as a substitution for the

the help of Cuvier’s brother in surveys undertaken

corporeal metaphors of the living body politic that

during the weekends. The publication included the

had fueled the festive language of revolutionary

most important part of their research, the “geog-

regeneration. However unrealizable, Giraud’s uto-

nostic map,” and ideal sections that represented

pian project reveals the genuine anxiety of those

the findings of their extensive fieldwork. The large

who experienced the events of the Revolution in

map included in the volume shows the area around

seeking to process its physical and unavoidable

Paris color coded to represent different geological

remainders and incorporate them into monuments

formations (plate 29). For example, a blue wash

of lasting permanence (one might also add here

represented gypsum deposits, such as the small

the uncanny resonance between Giraud’s proposal

ringed section of Montmartre, just north of Paris,

and the glass sculpture of Marie-​Antoinette made

while the yellow signaled limestone. The light

by Pierre Haly).

orange indicated areas where gypsum beds con-



107

166

earth around them. Thus, I want to end this chap-

by the ideas of Becher, which had been pre-

Essai sur la géographie minéralogique des envi-

For those living through the uncertainties of

tained fossils. Each colored portion represented

the postrevolutionary period, Paris clearly served

a section that had been surveyed, with the team

as the threshold site where the living encountered

moving outward from Paris; uncolored sections

the phantasmagorical projections and fantasies

were areas that remained to be fully mapped.

of the dead, where desires for the fulfillment of



utopian visions of transparency and regenera-

unusual succession of terrains, which included

tion commingled with the horrific spectacle of

fossil deposits of freshwater shells and seashells,

open mass graves and landscapes of ruin. In a

as well as “the bones of completely unknown

Luxury After the terror

In the Essai, the authors wrote that Paris’s

terrestrial animals,” provided a remarkably rich

where marine life had flourished in a basin now

source for providing knowledge on “the last

populated with humans. Such remains provided

revolutions that concluded the formation of our

evidence of a Paris that had been covered with suc-

continents.”108 At a glance, the geographical map

cessive bodies of water and marine creatures that

of Paris could be seen as part of a broader impe-

were once alive but now extinct (fig. 65).

rial project to map France and bring its expand-



ing colonial territories under ideological control,

and Brongniart’s pioneering fieldwork is the fact

much as engineering maps played an instrumental

that, at the very moment they were surveying the

role in Napoleon’s military campaigns. Some

deeper geological strata of the city, the spectacle

cartographic endeavors, such as the monumental

of death and the human history of revolution

achievement of mapping Upper and Lower Egypt

had reshaped the outermost layers of Paris. What

in the Description de l’Egypte, constituted proleptic

Cuvier and Brongniart were after is a mapping

pictorial conquests that took place on paper in lieu

of time, of prior histories of life and destruction

of real territorial acquisitions. However, Cuvier

knowable only by the fragmentary traces they

and Brongniart’s maps contrast with the repre-

left behind. As Rudwick writes, “their imagined

sentational matrix of Napoleonic cartography by

picture of successive seas . . . did not portray the

translating the familiar territory around Paris into

inexorable. . . . Rather it was a geohistory just as

a completely foreign world. This is especially the

unpredictable, complex, and contingent as the tur-

case with the long foldout plate featuring sections

bulent political history that both authors had lived

of the grounds that Cuvier and Brongniart had

through during the previous two decades. It was a

surveyed. Although Notre Dame in Paris func-

complex story of successive ‘revolutions’ . . . pieced

tions as the nominal point zero, with locations

together from ‘nature’s documents.’ ”109 The Essai

radiating outward from the center, the landmarks

sur la géographie minéralogique is a record of the

are by no means systematic, with the landscape

disaster.110

fractured into different locations and represen-



tational formats. Close-​ups of Clignancourt and

of a speculative attempt to imagine the city after

Drury are positioned above a sectional view of

it had been reshaped by the political events of the

Fontainebleau, the same forest where Brongniart

Revolution, when porcelain became a fraught site

had once been arrested. Human military conquest

and material of contestation where fragmented

would register as no more than a superficial mark

identities and ideas were worked out in the absence

on the uppermost surface of the section, just as

of the ideological dictates of a sovereign ruler.

the Paris observatory, the forest of Fontainebleau,

As this chapter has sought to argue, porcelain, once

and Versailles are but arbitrary markers floating

divorced from its royal prerogatives, was swept

atop foundations that reach deep into succes-

up into the tide of artistic, economic, and cultural

sive layers of chalk, clay, stone, gypsum, and fine

changes of Paris, a city reshaped by the politics of

sand. Fossil deposits, illustrated with shells and

extinction and regeneration. When read together,

corals that Cuvier and Brongniart had discovered

the porcelain objects made at Sèvres from the

above the gypsum formations, indicate the places

resource deposits caught between the stratigraphic

Among the more prominent elisions in Cuvier

Cuvier and Brongniart’s map of Paris was part

Alexandre Brongniart

167

Fig. 65 Georges Cuvier and Alexandre Brongniart, Corps organisés fossiles des couches marines des environs de Paris, plate 2 from Essai sur la géographie minéralogique des environs de Paris, 1811. Engraving, 25 × 19 cm. Photo courtesy of David Rumsey Map Collection, David Rumsey Map Center, Stanford Libraries.

168

layers of Cuvier and Brongniart’s map registered

Cuvier, thinking about porcelain and geological

a collective desire to visualize and process extinc-

fieldwork together reveals an unlikely episte-

tion, and to see survival after the end of things,

mological practice that supplanted the orderly

much in the way that the revolutionaries promised

realm of collecting: digging. Sources of kaolin

a new beginning after the death of the monarchy.

had to be dug up from the ground in order to



make refined pieces of hard-​paste porcelain,

More than any formal characteristics that

shaped the connections between Brongniart’s

just as mapping the invisible hidden parts of the

work at Sèvres and his scientific findings with

earth entailed digging into the earth. Bodies had

Luxury After the terror

to be dug from graves and reburied in cemeter-

desire to exterminate and regenerate, to establish

ies for the public, even as Napoleon’s cultural

new foundations and political authority upon the

advisor Dominique Vivant-​Denon orchestrated

unstable and shifting grounds of the recent past.

the unearthing of relics to secure the emperor’s

Perhaps in Cuvier’s obsession with fossil recon-

political destiny. The earth was dug to plant trees

struction and Brongniart’s interest in plumbing the

of liberty. A leveling of all bodies to a humble

depths of Paris’s mineralogical terrain—in other

posture meant to bring the upright body nearer to

words, in their collective search for firm ground

the earth in a gesture toward gleaning, digging is

amid the fragile terrains of Paris—we see an ongo-

also indirectly referenced in the famous image of

ing political urgency that seeks to arrest time even

the beheaded Louis XVI, captioned with the lyrics

as it rewrites the past. In light of this volatile con-

of “La Marseillaise,” declaring that “an impure

text, it might be possible to see pieces of porcelain

blood waters our furrows.” This base action, both

not only as the product of stylistic developments

collectively shared by those participating in the

or the instruments of politeness but as evidence of

Fête de la Fédération and individually practiced

deeper engagements with collective memories

by Brongniart and Cuvier seeking the grounds of

of revolutionary violence. In beholding a cup and

a new theory of the Earth, also represents the fun-

saucer, one also grasps the revolutionary desire for

damental tensions at the heart of the revolutionary

new foundations.

111

Alexandre Brongniart

169

Every source—more exactly, every remnant we transform into a source through our questions—refers us to a history which is either more, less, or in any case something other than the remnant itself. —Reinhart Koselleck

A

fter the Revolution, the luxuries that had once figured amid the great collections of the ancien régime were revived

once more by scholars in the nineteenth century nostalgic for a past that no longer existed. Both the king’s death and the dispersal of royal col-

Coda

lections became interpreted as part of the tragic consequences of the period, a great unmitigated disaster for the national heritage of France that nonetheless made its treasures accessible to a new generation of buyers. In the pages of connoisseurs such as the Goncourt brothers and Baron Jean Charles Davillier, the world of splendor was recuperated once more, indicating the singular power that curiosity and the quest for novelty had in the development of art in the course of the eighteenth century. Though the discovery of each rare bibelot or trouvaille in the crowded spaces of the antique shops vividly captured in the novels of Balzac warranted excitement, the world of collecting was also entrenched in the deadly language of nostalgia and the impossible longing for the past.1

Dispersal and disinheritance were not only

the inevitable parts of a tragedy but also a vital aspect of the dialectics of revolutionary culture; ultimately, this complex period of history has lasting ties to our own world, forming a common but deeply contested cultural inheritance. Dispossession became part of the political matrix at the end of the eighteenth century, reshaping identities in ways as equally powerful as the collecting and acquisition of luxury had done in

the ancien régime. Removed from the context of

personal toilet sets to dining vessels, the goldsmith

ownership and possession, singular objects became

Martin-​Guillaume Biennais furnished the impe-

vehicles for alternative meanings beyond signs of

rial retinue with objects of gold and silver, which

taste or personal wealth. They became, to quote

sought to surpass the rituals of the ancien régime.

Reinhart Koselleck’s statement at the beginning of



this coda, “remnants” of the past translated into

as the authority and ultimate arbiter of taste came

sources of history. To think about luxury after

undone in the wake of the Revolution. While

the Terror means not only to consider it in terms

Napoleon built institutions and administra-

of fashion and newness, or the historical revivals

tions with greater bureaucratic ferocity than the

that permeated the production of goods in the

monarchy, a nagging sense of inauthenticity crept

early nineteenth century, but to contemplate how

into every attempt to reassert order. Critics of

luxury became tied to a language of endings and

the regime, such as Benjamin Constant and René

extinction.

de Chateaubriand, viewed the very newness of



Napoleonic power as the source of its illegitimacy.

Can a world of luxury survive without its

distinguished patrons, especially royal ones such

The language of novelty, once the preserve of

as Louis XVI? This is the question I have posed

princely patrons and cultivated taste in the ancien

in the book by exploring the ways in which new

régime, became a source of hypocrisy. Standing

beginnings for luxury and its makers emerged in

before the temporary facade that had been hast-

the wake of dispersal and disinheritance. In focus-

ily built by the architects Percier and Fontaine

ing on this particular set of individuals and their

for Napoleon’s coronation at Notre Dame, one

search for new markets, I do not mean to argue

observer marveled at the multiplicity of symbols

that the patronage of luxury objects came to a

and decorations at the same time that he was left

complete end. Such an assertion is belied by the

disgusted: “my curiosity was more actively excited

resurgence of decorative art objects that Napoleon

by the strangeness of all that I saw, by the multi-

commissioned as he sought to establish a new

plicity, the variety, the minutiae and stiffness of

imperial court and strengthen the central author-

details. . . . I had a profound aversion and disgust

ity of the French state. Averse to the old, Napoleon

for falsehood, and all I saw was falsehood and

demanded that everything be made new. The impe-

hypocrisy.”3 While Napoleon sought to trans-

rial government helped to revive the silk industry

fer the language of regeneration to the renewal of

in Lyon by commissioning new furnishing fabrics

the luxury industry, a literary tradition emerged

for the former royal palaces it occupied, even as a

that valorized worn, faded, and ruined things,

number of the old silks stored in the former Garde-​

including Christianity itself.4 Chateaubriand thus

Meuble de la Couronne, which had been made for

attacked the new regime from the protective space

Marie-​Antoinette, found their way into imperial

of the tomb, celebrating the superstitious ritu-

palaces such as Fontainebleau. Working at the

als of Christianity and writing his memories from

revived Sèvres porcelain manufactory, Brongniart

“beyond the grave.”5

supplied staggering services and table displays to



convey the opulence of the imperial court. From

forms. Instead of providing a neat ending to the

2

172

Nonetheless, the mythic status of the patron

Coda

The remnants of history could assume many

tangle of individual narratives and objects that

child projecting himself into the image cast on

this book has pursued, I conclude with an unas-

the wall, enacting a Freudian family romance by

suming object that nonetheless distills the idea of

rejecting his own neglectful parents and imagin-

luxury as a dialectical engagement with the past.

ing himself as the secret inheritor of royal lineage.

The fan chosen here is an example from 1795 that

All sorts of fantasies abound in this implement of

is mounted in ivory. At the center of the pleated

fashion, which functioned as a popular form of

leaf, covered with small sequins that sparkle when

royalist propaganda. Both containing and mimick-

the folded surface is manipulated, is a vignette that

ing the projective cast of the magic lantern, the

contains a couple gazing at a void cast upon the

fan demonstrates how royalist imagery could be

wall by a child adroitly working a magic lantern

hidden in a variety of innocuous objects produced

(plate 30). Dressed as a fashionable couple in the

in Directory France. A semicircular object excised

style of a Merveilleuse and Incroyable, the scene

from a sheet of paper that was folded and placed

appears to feature a bourgeois family enjoying a

on a tractable mount, the multiple meanings of the

lighthearted amusement within the comfortable

fan were not always apparent but were inscribed

confines of a domestic space. Holding the fan

within its material registers, requiring intense

up to the light in a gesture mimicking the man

scrutiny by the holder and the beholder of the

with the spectacles, one can see the portraits of

image. The small family looks at the spectacle of

Louis XVI, Marie-​Antoinette, and the dauphin

the past from a removed but proximate distance,

materialize from the paper blank spot encircled

savoring the pleasures of the moment as survivors

by a pansy, or fleur de pensée. Encountering these

of history.

6

spectral historical figures, one pictures the small

Coda

173

Introduction

Notes

1. On furniture as a form of state ideology, see Auslander, Taste and Power. Curiously, the Revolution does not figure largely in her narrative. 2. See Comay, Mourning Sickness; Fritzsche, Specters of History; and Dodman, What Nostalgia Was. 3. Bordes and Michel, Aux armes et aux arts; Clark, “Painting in the Year Two”; Crow, Emulation; Lajer-​Burcharth, Necklines; Grigsby, Extremities. Subsequent scholars have focused on the work of David’s pupils. See, for example, O’Brien, After the Revolution. 4. Dowd, Pageant-​Master of the Republic. 5. McClellan, Inventing the Louvre. 6. See Siegfried, “Visual Culture of Fashion.” See also Porterfield and Siegfried, Staging Empire. 7. Dubin, Futures and Ruins; Freund, Portraiture and Politics; Halliday, Facing the Public; Taws, Politics of the Provisional; Reichardt and Kohle, Visualizing the Revolution. 8. Quoted in McClellan, Inventing the Louvre, 106. 9. See Panzanelli and Preti-​Hamard, Circulation des oeuvres d’art. 10. On the history of “salvage architecture,” see Harris, Moving Rooms. 11. On Morris’s purchases in Paris, see Schreider, “Gouverneur Morris.” 12. See Naginski, “Object of Contempt,” 32–53. See also Moon, Architecture of Percier and Fontaine, 36–37. 13. See, for example, Hellman, “Furniture.” 14. See Hellman, “Joy of Sets.” 15. On the discourse of luxury during the Enlightenment, see Provost, Luxe. 16. See Burke, Fabrication of Louis XIV. 17. Scott, Rococo Interior; Sargentson, Merchants and Luxury Markets. 18. For a synopsis of luxury in Europe, see Berg and Clifford, Consumers and Luxury. 19. Shovlin, Political Economy of Virtue. 20. On collecting the French school of paintings in prerevolutionary France, see Bailey, Patriotic Taste. 21. Quoted in McClellan, Inventing the Louvre, 108. For the selection of objects at the original opening on August 10, 1793, see Catalogue des objets, especially 104–20.

22. McClellan, Inventing the Louvre, 109. On Lebrun and a Sèvres porcelain garniture, see Moon, “Sèvres Elephant Garniture.” 23. Tackett, Coming of the Terror, 3. On the question of how to end the Terror, see Baczko, Ending the Terror. 24. On this work, see Moon, “Mirabeau in Biscuit.” 25. See Spang, “Frivolous French,” who interprets the Directory period myth of the “frivolous French” in terms of an emergence of a liberal tradition in France. 26. Scurr, Fatal Purity, 293. 27. Ibid. 28. On the fluctuating meanings of luxury, see Coquery and Bonnet, Commerce du luxe. 29. Coquery, “Luxury Goods Beyond Boundaries,” 286. 30. Ibid., 290. 31. See Ross, Communal Luxury. 32. Taws, “Trompe l’Oeil and Trauma.” 33. On the question of a French consumer revolution, see Kwass, “Consumption and the World of Ideas.” 34. On connoisseurship and collecting in the context of drawings, see Smentek, Mariette. 35. Gaillard, “Commissaires-​priseurs,” 183–85. 36. Stammers, Purchase of the Past; and see Davis, Tastemakers. 37. Stammers, Purchase of the Past, 31. 38. Walczak, Artistische Wanderer, 8. 39. See in particular Coquery et al., Progrès de l’industrie perfectionnée. 40. See Rosenberg and Yang, “Introduction.” 41. Hunt, Family Romance, 3. 42. Comay, Mourning Sickness, 79. 43. On the question of Haiti and Hegel’s philosophy of history, see Buck-​Morss, Hegel, Haiti, and Universal History. 44. See Crow, Emulation. 45. See Lemonnier-​Mercier, “Travaux de Pierre-​Adrien Pâris.” 46. Shovlin, Political Economy of Virtue, 192. 47. Walczak, Artistische Wanderer, 8, as in the case of the widow of the painter Pierre Danloux. 48. See Jordanova, “Medical Mediations”; and Lajer-​ Burcharth, Necklines. 49. Brongniart, Traité des arts céramiques. 50. I use “subject position” here in a deliberate nod to Stuart Hall, who reminds us that culture or identity is not about fixed essence, but about taking

176

Notes to Pages 7–23

strategic positions and the politics of location. See Hall, “Who Needs ‘Identity’?”

Chapter 1



1. Gaillard, “Vente du mobilier royal,” 91. 2. Beurdeley, “Ventes du mobilier royal,” 115. 3. Ibid., 117. 4. Stammers, Purchase of the Past, 4. 5. Verlet, French Royal Furniture, 168. See Beurdeley, France à l’encan. 6. Verlet, French Royal Furniture, 54. 7. On Žižek’s notion of the canceled Kantian subject in the context of finance capitalism and the slave trade in eighteenth-​century England, see Baucom, Specters of the Atlantic, 53–59. 8. On Charles I’s collection, see Beurdeley, Trois siècles de ventes publiques, 19–25. 9. Gaillard, “Vente du mobilier royal,” 91. 10. For a discussion of the royal family’s move from Versailles to the Tuileries in 1789, see Forray-​ Carlier, “Famille royale aux Tuileries,” 17–51. 11. Battestini, “Famille royale aux Tuileries,” 65. 12. Ibid. 13. Ibid., 66. 14. Quoted in Standen, “Jean-​Jacques-​François Le Barbier,” 258. The full commission included four tapestries of The Four Continents with two matching canapés (a type of sofa) and twelve armchairs, along with four tapestries of the arts, sciences, agriculture, and commerce, with two matching canapés and twelve armchairs. 15. Ibid., 260–61. 16. Quoted in Beurdeley, France à l’encan, 192. 17. Jacqué, “Wallpaper in the Royal Apartments,” 2–3. 18. Ibid., 7. 19. Battestini, “Famille royale aux Tuileries,” 66. 20. Ibid., 11. 21. See Trey, Madame Élisabeth, 66–67. 22. On the theatricality of the execution, see Huet, Rehearsing the Revolution. 23. This is the version in Jordan, King’s Trial, 217–21. 24. Walzer, Regicide and Revolution, 13. 25. Ibid., 5. 26. Hours, “Bonne mort des rois,” 33–41. 27. Sabatier, “Roi est mort,” 22.

28. Ibid., 25. 29. Hardman, Life of Louis XVI, 232–33. 30. Fureix, France des larmes, 205. 31. [Louis XVI], Testament de notre bon roi, 1. 32. Ibid., 9. 33. Ibid. 34. See, for example, Weber, Terror and Its Discontents, especially 71–74, and Baecque, Body Politic, 29–75, where he emphasizes that much of the work to discredit the king’s body took place prior to the Revolution. 35. Jordan, King’s Trial, 220. On royal silhouettes in the revolutionary period, see Goudie, “Smuggled Silhouettes,” 40–55. 36. Jordan, King’s Trial, 220. 37. Wahnich, In Defense of the Terror. 38. Kant, Metaphysics of Morals, 6:320n. 39. Ibid. 40. For the chapel that was ultimately built by Napoleon’s architect, Fontaine, see Moon, Architecture of Percier and Fontaine, 155–62. 41. Fureix, France des larmes. 42. Taws, “Dauphin and His Doubles,” 72–100. 43. Convention nationale, Recueil des décrets, 3:502. 44. Blaufarb, Great Demarcation, 3. 45. Ibid., 4. 46. Morcillo, “Staging Power and Authority,” 154. 47. Ibid., 162. 48. Beurdeley, Trois siècles de ventes publiques, 26. 49. Ibid., 29. 50. Alcouffe, “Ventes de Louis XV,” 47. 51. Ibid. 52. Wall, “English Auction.” 53. On Saint-​Aubin’s catalog drawings, see Bailey, “ ‘Indefatigable, Unclassifiable Art Lover,’ ” 75–102. 54. Beurdeley, Trois siècles de ventes publiques, 57. 55. Cabinet du duc d’Aumont, xv. 56. Beurdeley, Trois siècles de ventes publiques, 53. 57. Ibid., 56. 58. Gaillard notes that the items from the royal residences were as follows: 17,000 pieces from Versailles, 5,900 from Marly, 10,000 from Saint-​ Cloud, and 6,700 from Bellevue. See Gaillard, “Commissaires-​priseurs,” 185. 59. Ibid. 60. Convention nationale, Recueil des décrets, 3:504. 61. Ibid., 3:506.

62. Ibid., 3:507–8. 63. Clerc, “Mobilier à l’heure du choix,” 94. 64. On the prince de Condé garniture, see Moon, “Sèvres Elephant Garniture.” 65. Archives départementales des Yvelines et de l’ancienne Seine-​et-​Oise 2Q707, 7/2770–2773, “8bre-16 du 1er mois au 23 du meme 1er mois de l’an II.” 66. See Freddolini and Helmreich, “Inventories, Catalogues.” 67. Gaillard, “Vente du mobilier royal,” 94. 68. Ibid. 69. Beurdeley, “Ventes du mobilier royal,” 116. 70. On Treuttel and Würtz, see de Bellaigue, Louis XVI Service, 3–4. 71. Beurdeley, “Ventes du mobilier royal,” 117. 72. Ibid. 73. Prevost-​Marcilhacy, “Grandes collections anglaises,” 186. See Davis, Tastemakers. 74. Beurdeley, France à l’encan, 99. 75. Ibid., 184–91. 76. See Kisluk-​Grosheide, “French Royal Furniture.” 77. Verlet, French Royal Furniture, 138. Although Verlet did not find the precise sum that Riesener received for the secretaire, it is likely that he was paid around 8,000 livres for the delivery in 1780. For the history of a related secretaire and commode by Riesener, see Rieder, “Royal Commode and Secretaire by Riesener,” 83–96. See also Buckland, “Karriere eines Kunstschreiners.” 78. Beurdeley, France à l’encan, 80. 79. Verlet, French Royal Furniture, 8–11. 80. Beurdeley, “Ventes du mobilier royal,” 120. 81. Ibid. 82. Grimm, Mémoire historique, 43. 83. Cotté, “Comte d’Angiviller,” 145. On d’Angiviller’s ties to court capitalists, see Shovlin, Political Economy of Virtue, 155–56. 84. See McClellan, Inventing the Louvre. 85. Cotté, “Comte d’Angiviller,” 160. 86. Ibid., 145. 87. Morris, Diary and Letters of Gouverneur Morris, 2:87. 88. Ibid., 2:86. 89. On this chair, see Kisluk-​Grosheide, “French Royal Furniture,” 22–24. 90. On the private collectors who helped to shape the history of the French Revolution, see Stammers, Purchase of the Past.

Notes to Pages 24–37

177

91. Stammers, “Bric-​a-​Brac of the Old Regime,” 296. 92. Davillier, Vente du mobilier, 259. 93. Ibid., 3–4. 94. I thank John Whitehead for the connection. 95. See Hellman, “Joy of Sets.” 96. In the print context, see Reichardt and Kohle, Visualizing the Revolution. 97. On archives, history, and memory, see Steedman, Dust.

Chapter 2

1. Beurdeley, France à l’encan, 24–25. 2. Ibid., 24. 3. Lefuel, “Fastes de l’ère impériale,” 253. 4. Ibid., 252–53. 5. On the debates about monetary policy, see Spang, Stuff and Money. 6. See ibid. 7. De Brosses, Du culte des dieux fétiches, 53; quoted in Naginski, “Object of Contempt,” 32. On de Brosses and the concept of fetishism, see also Leonard, “Fetishism and Figurism.” 8. Taws, “Trompe l’Oeil and Trauma.” 9. On Beckford’s purchases in revolutionary France, see Eschapasse, “William Beckford in Paris,” 99–115. 10. Christie’s Paris, November 4, 2015, “Collection du Comte Thierry de Ganay lot 519.” 11. Carlier, “Aspects inédits,” 195. 12. See Cole, Cellini, 15–42. 13. For a Northern Renaissance goldsmith’s work in the devotional context, see van der Velden, Donor’s Image. 14. Nocq, Poinçon de Paris, vol. A–C, 33. Though his name is at times spelled Henri, I have retained the version used by Carlier. 15. Dennis, French Domestic Silver, 9. 16. Ibid., 9–10. 17. Ibid., 10–11. 18. Ibid., 12. On the rampant cases of fraud, see Bimbenet-​Privat and de Fontaines, Datation de l’orfèvrerie parisienne, 66. 19. Markezana, Poinçons français, 12. 20. Ibid., 21. 21. Bimbenet-​Privat and de Fontaines, Datation de l’orfèvrerie parisienne, 160–61.

178

Notes to Pages 37–53

22. Saule, “Quand Versailles était meublée d’argent,” 27. 23. On the complexities of global capital and the distribution of silver in the early modern period, see Flynn and Giráldez, “Cycles of Silver.” 24. Ibid., 54. 25. Ibid., 55. 26. Bottineau, “Retour à l’antique,” 203–4. 27. Ibid., 204. 28. Carlier, “Aspects inédits,” 195. 29. Ibid. 30. Ibid., 196. 31. On Robert-​Joseph Auguste’s sculpture models, see Le Corbeiller, “Robert-​Joseph Auguste.” 32. Lebreton, “Notice historique,” 28. 33. Campbell, “Jean-​Guillaume Moitte,” 7. 34. Gramiccini, Jean-​Guillaume Moitte, 1:2. 35. Quoted in Campbell, “Jean-​Guillaume Moitte,” 232. 36. Gramiccini, Jean-​Guillaume Moitte, 1:2. 37. Lebreton, “Notice historique,” 30. 38. Of the 531 drawings from the workshop of Odiot stamped with “collection J. B. C. Odiot” held at the Musée des arts décoratifs in Paris, approximately 120 are from the workshop of Auguste and attributed to Moitte. See Gay-​Mazuel, Odiot, 32. 39. For a discussion of the drawing, see Myers, French Architectural and Ornament Drawings, 1–2. 40. See Arizzoli-​Clémentel, “Percier and Biennais Album,” 195–201. 41. See Myers, French Architectural and Ornament Drawings, 6, cat. no. 4. 42. Lebreton, “Notice historique,” 30. 43. See Vignon and Baulez, Pierre Gouthière. 44. Eschapasse, “William Beckford in Paris,” 28. See also Baker and Snodin, “William Beckford’s Silver,” 738–39. 45. Baker and Snodin, “William Beckford’s Silver,” 739. 46. Quoted in ibid., 736. 47. For Willes Maddox’s painting of Beckford on his deathbed, see Ostergard, Hewat-​Jaboor, and McLeod, William Beckford, 404, cat. no. 150. 48. Jones, European Silver, 253 and 254. The goldsmith’s English market possibly initiated the anglicized spelling of his name as “Henry.” 49. On the prints of the Fête de la Fédération and their role in transforming the experience of revolutionary festivals, see Taws, Politics of the Provisional, 71–96.

50. On the aesthetic significance of commercial shop signs in ancien régime France, see Wrigley, “Between the Street and the Salon,” 45–67. 51. The workshop was destroyed in 1801. See Carlier, “Aspects inédits,” 210n30. 52. Lefuel, “Fastes de l’ère impériale,” 251. 53. Markezana, Poinçons français, 71. 54. Carlier, “Aspects inédits,” 196. 55. See Dion-​Tenenbaum, Orfèvre de Napoléon, 12–13. 56. See Le Corbeiller, “Platinum Bowl by Janety.” See also Moon, Architecture of Percier and Fontaine, especially chapter 4. 57. See Dubois, Avengers of the New World, 119. 58. Carlier, “Aspects inédits,” 210n13. 59. Mercier, Argent des révolutionnaires, 7. 60. Ibid., 9. 61. Ibid., 74. 62. Spang, Stuff and Money, 107. 63. Spang, “Ghost of Law,” 7. 64. Ibid., 13. 65. Spang, Stuff and Money, 146. 66. Auguste, Moyens de faciliter l’échange, 3: “il faut un numéraire réel, adapté aux circonstances, et qui se prête par ses subdivisions au paiement des plus petites denrées.” 67. Ibid., 4. In contrast to the interest-​bearing mortgage, the hypothèque refers to the ancien régime practice of borrowing money against fixed property used as collateral. See Spang, Stuff and Money, 35. 68. Auguste, Observations sur le projet. 69. Auguste, Moyens de faciliter l’échange, 6. 70. Bimbenet-​Privat and de Fontaines, Datation de l’orfèvrerie parisienne, 67. 71. Auguste, Observations de Henri Auguste. 72. Bimbenet-​Privat and de Fontaines, Datation de l’orfèvrerie parisienne, 66–67. 73. On alchemy’s relationship to artisanship in the early modern period, see Smith, Body of the Artisan. 74. Saunier, “Artiste romantique,” 447. 75. See, for example, Gauthier, Précis pour le citoyen Gauthier, the 1795 case that Gauthier, a founder of metal scraps, brought against Auguste. 76. Carlier, “Aspects inédits,” 210n13. 77. Freeman, Compromising of Louis XVI, 21. 78. Ibid., 50. 79. Melville, Life and Letters of William Beckford, 179–80.

80. Carlier, “Aspects inédits,” 196. 81. Ibid., 199. 82. On intellectual property, inventors, and patents during the Revolution, see Galvez-​Behar, République des inventeurs; and Demeulenaere-​ Douyère, “Inventeurs en Révolution.” 83. Gramiccini, Jean-​Guillaume Moitte, appendix, 270. 84. Bordes, Représenter la Révolution, 88. On the Salon of 1798, see Halliday, Facing the Public. 85. The painting remains in a private collection. 86. See Adam and Gérard, Collection des portraits historiques. 87. Quoted in Salmon, Peintre des rois, 15. 88. Ibid. 89. Saunier, “Artiste romantique,” 451. 90. Nocq, Poinçon de Paris, vol. 1, 34–35. 91. Carlier, “Aspects inédits,” 212. 92. On the sociability of science in Enlightenment France, see Riskin, Science in the Age of Sensibility. 93. For a partially published version of the inventory, see Carlier, “Aspects inédits,” appendix, 212–14. 94. See the note from C. Beche, January 10, 1975, “Coeur reliquaire exhumé lors des travaux d’agrandissement de l’église de l’Hay-​les-​Roses,” Archives départementales du Val-​de-​Marne 1977/03/29. 95. Scurr, Fatal Purity, 275. 96. Given the subject matter, it is probable that this sculpture was made later than the date of 1790 suggested by the glass dealer Sylvie L’Hermite-​ King, who sold the piece to the Corning Museum of Glass. See the online catalog of the Corning Museum of Glass, accession number 2003.3.35. 97. For the history of heart-​shaped reliquaries and the heart in general, see Nagle, Civilization du coeur. 98. Archives départementales du Val-​de-​Marne 1977/03/29. 99. On the legal changes to family structures during the Revolution, see Desan, Family on Trial. 100. On Simonides and memory, see Yates, Art of Memory. 101. Carson, Economy of the Unlost, 78. 102. Schechter, “Gothic Thermidor.” 103. On the discovery of human remains at the Chapelle expiatoire, see Taws, “Bones of Contention.” 104. On Deseine’s bust of Gabrielle Danton, see Syamken, “Der Geist der Natur.” On the sculptor’s

Notes to Pages 54–64

179

work during the Revolution, see Bordes, “Mirabeau de Claude-​André Deseine,” 61–66. 105. On the use of boxes in Georgian England, see Vickery, Behind Closed Doors. 106. See Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo Museum of Art Masterworks, 221. 107. For another mystery box by John Harris, circa 1820/1, owned by Beckford’s agent Gregorio Franchi, see Alcorn, English Silver, 2:270–73. 108. Dayan, Haiti, History, and the Gods, 192. Beckford’s own wealth depended on family plantations in Jamaica. See Gikandi, Slavery and the Culture of Taste, especially 131–37. 109. Dion-​Tenenbaum, “Orfèvrerie Parisienne,” 42–44. 110. Carlier, “Henry Auguste,” 202. 111. The pair of tureens and stands in the Royal Collection by Auguste provides some sense of the splendor he was called upon to create for Napoleon. See Jones, European Silver, 252–53, cat. no. 151. Tommaso di Somma, marchese di Circello, who served as ambassador for the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies to Paris, originally commissioned the pieces from 1786 to 1793, roughly the same dates that Beckford was in Paris. 112. Murgia, “Crafty Link,” 48–49. 113. Quoted in ibid., 45. 114. Bouilhet, Orfèvrerie française, 59–60. See also Dion-​Tenenbaum, “Orfèvrerie Parisienne,” 45–46. 115. Saunier, “Artiste romantique,” 448. 116. Bouilhet, Orfèvrerie française, 60. 117. Dion-​Tenenbaum, “Orfèvrerie Parisienne,” 46. 118. On notions of reputation, social credit, and regard in the ancien régime, see Crowston, Credit, Fashion, Sex. 119. Saunier, “Artiste romantique,” 451. 120. Nicholas William to William Beckford, Paris, October 10, 1797, in Melville, Life and Letters of William Beckford, 197. 121. In ibid., 248. 122. Viljoen, “Laocoon’s Snakes,” 22. 123. Carlier, “Henry Auguste,” 207. 124. Ibid., appendix 2, 216–17. 125. Ibid., 208. 126. Ibid. 127. Saunier, “Artiste romantique,” 452. 128. Ibid., 453.

180

Notes to Pages 64–73

129. Archives de Paris Dq10/645 dossier 3363, Paris le 32 mai 1819. This document also summarizes the lawsuit that took place between the royal treasury and the proprietor of Auguste’s home in Paris over the 22,500 livres from the auctioning of Auguste’s seized goods. 130. Saunier, “Artiste romantique,” 453. 131. Ibid. 132. Ibid., 455. 133. Archives de Paris Dq10/645, dossier 3363, Paris le 18 fevrier 1819, No. 12221 A 4 “Reclamation des sieurs Auguste.” 134. Dayan, Haiti, History, and the Gods, 3. 135. Ibid., 17. 136. On Boulton’s coins, see Tungate, “Matthew Boulton and the Soho Mint.” 137. I thank Joseph Guerdy Lissade for the helpful information regarding the genealogical records. On Haitian money, see his Guide de numismatique haïtienne. 138. See James, Black Jacobins. 139. Dayan, Haiti, History, and the Gods, 13. 140. Ibid., 35–36.

Chapter 3







1. Cléry, Captivité de Louis XVI, 33–34. 2. Quoted in Scurr, Fatal Purity, 243. 3. Dugourc and Jaume, Nouvelles cartes à jouer, 1. 4. Ibid. Victoria and Albert Museum, E.409–2005. The Victoria and Albert catalogue erroneously attributes the design to the cartier Jacques Coissieux, which is unlikely, given that Dugourc and Jaume applied for the brevet d’invention. For other attributions, see Depaulis, Cartes de la Révolution, 20. 5. Taws, “Wargaming,” 56. 6. See Baulez, “Imaginations de Dugourc”; Gastinel-​ Coural, “Notes et documents”; and Benito Garcia, “ ‘Intrépide’ fabricant.” Junquera’s resesarch in the Spanish royal archives established the evidence of Dugourc’s role at the court of Charles IV; see Junquera, Decoración y el mobiliario. 7. Scott, Becoming Property, 283. 8. On passports, see Taws, Politics of the Provisional; on Robespierre’s last signed document, see Huet,

Mourning Glory, 107–24. On paper’s place in the production of structures of knowledge, see Gitelman, Paper Knowledge. 9. Kafka, Demon of Writing, 41. 10. Ibid., 16. 11. On Hubert Robert’s role in these projects, see Dubin, Futures and Ruins. 12. Mercier, Tableau de Paris, 1:224. 13. Dugourc, “Autobiographie,” 101. On “court capitalists,” see Shovlin, Political Economy of Virtue, 154–59. 14. Woodbridge, “Bélanger en Angleterre,” 11–12. 15. Archives nationales de France R1 315 “Note des ouvrages,” in Baulez, “Imaginations de Dugourc,” 15. 16. Ibid. 17. On the École royale gratuite de dessin, see Leben, Object Design. 18. On how the complexities of architect-​patron relations manifest in eighteenth-​century drawings, see Fuhring, Design into Art. 19. Baulez, “Imaginations de Dugourc,” 12. 20. Ibid., 14. 21. Dugourc, “Autobiographie,” 101. 22. Baulez, “Imaginations de Dugourc,” 14. 23. Dugourc, “Autobiographie,” 101. 24. Baulez, “Imaginations de Dugourc,” 12–13. 25. Archives nationales de France T/258/5-6, especially the dossier marked “Succession de mon père, poursuittes, de ses créanciers renseignments des dettes passives.” For more on the papers of Jozeau, see Baulez, “Imaginations de Dugourc,” 17–18. 26. Crow, Emulation. 27. Belhaouari, “Jean Démosthène Dugourc et le dessin d’histoire,” 67–78. 28. On Dugourc’s training under Saint-​Aubin, see Gastinel-​Coural, “Jean-​Démosthène Dugourc.” 29. See Jones, Carey, and Richardson, Saint-​Aubin Livre de caricatures, 8–9. See also Mauriès, Sur les papilloneries humaines. 30. Shovlin, Political Economy of Virtue, 154. 31. Castelluccio, Garde-​Meuble de la Couronne, 231. 32. Ibid., 236. 33. Ibid. 34. See González-​Palacios, “Daguerre.” 35. Sterne, À l’ombre de Sophie Arnould, 2:186–87. 36. Dugourc, “Autobiographie,” 101.

37. For examples of Dugourc’s sketches for Pernon, see Soieries de Lyon, cat. nos. 70, 71, 73, and 78. 38. Camille Pernon to Jean-​Démosthène Dugourc, October 5, 1781, Archives nationales de France T/258/5-6. The drawing proposed by Dugourc of the eagle balancing a vase on its head is found on the verso of the letter. 39. Baulez, “Imaginations de Dugourc,” 17. 40. For a succinct account, see Beckman, How to Ruin a Queen. 41. On the jewel cabinet’s iconography and Marie-​ Antoinette’s identity, see Sheriff, “Cradle Is Empty.” 42. On this episode, see Maza, Private Lives and Public Affairs, chapter 4. 43. On the body of Marie-​Antoinette as a generative subject, see Goodman, Marie-​Antoinette. 44. Guichard, “Amateurs and the Culture of Etching,” 137. 45. Musée historique des Tissus de Lyon, De Dugourc à Pernon, 54, cat. no. 5. 46. See Gilet, Giovanni Volpato. 47. Dacos, Découverte de la Domus Aurea, 10. 48. Cellini, Autobiography, 63. 49. See, for example, Stein, “Amédée Van Loo’s Costume turc.” 50. Quatremère de Quincy, Architecture, vol. 1, 73. 51. Ibid., vol. 1, 74. 52. Chastel, Grottesque. 53. Kant, Critique of Judgment, 16:76–77. 54. On the history of artists’ signatures as grafitti, see Guichard, Graffitis, 121–38. 55. On the use of loops in Renaissance medals, see Syson, “Holes and Loops.” 56. Wagner, Mother Stone, 124. 57. Winnicott, “String,” 51. The illustration is taken from Winnicott, “Child Psychiatry Case,” 350. 58. On the historical imaginary of the nineteenth century, see Bann, Inventions of History. On the literary theory of the obsolete, see Orlando, Obsolete Objects. 59. Wyss, Hegel’s Art History, 10. 60. Thomas, Wicked Queen, 138. 61. Bougault, “Vaupalière,” 150–55. 62. Gastinel-​Coural, “Notes et documents,” 79. 63. See Jolly, Fürstliche Interieurs, 142–47. It is highly unlikely that Picard alone would have been able to

Notes to Pages 74–92

181

design such a complex pattern, particularly given the inclusion of the figures, which were a specialty of Dugourc’s arabesques. 64. Castelluccio, Garde-​Meuble de la Couronne, 248. 65. Gastinel-​Coural, “Notes et documents,” 71. 66. Ibid., 79. 67. See Wrigley, Politics of Appearances. 68. Mantel, A Place of Greater Safety, 747. 69. Cobb, Death in Paris, 17. 70. Godineau, “Tricoteuses,” 102. 71. Ibid., 101. 72. Jolivet, Nouveaux moyens. 73. Weil, “Assignats de soie.” 74. Gastinel-​Coural, “Notes et documents,” 71. 75. Longfellow, “Silk Weavers.” 76. Prudhomme, Dictionnaire des individus, 2:13. 77. Dugourc, “Autobiographie,” 103. 78. Faroult, Hubert Robert, 404. 79. Ibid., 408. 80. Dugourc, “Autobiographie,” 102. 81. Taws, Politics of the Provisional, 75. 82. On the creation of letterhead designs in the revolutionary period, see Boppe and Bonnet, Vignettes emblématiques. 83. Quoted in Baulez, “Imaginations de Dugourc,” 27. 84. See Jacqué and Pastiaux-​Thiriat, Joseph Dufour, 21. For possible examples of Cietty’s wallpaper made on behalf of Bélanger, see Fuhring, François Joseph Bélanger. 85. On a copyright dispute over wallpaper between Jacques-​Louis Bance and Pierre Simon in 1802, see Scott, Becoming Property, 297–300. 86. On Cietty, another specialist of arabesque wallpaper during the Revolution, see Baulez, “De Belanger à Réveillon.” 87. Quoted in Velut, “Between Invention and Production,” 61. 88. On the complexity of printing assignats, see Taws, Politics of the Provisional, especially 34–35. 89. Baulez notes that the lease for the space at the hôtel de Longueville was dated January 26, 1792, while Anisson-​Dupéron signed a private agreement for the partnership with Dugourc and frère Gouron on January 31, 1793. However, Depaulis indicates that the wallpaper business ended in March 1793. This means that there was an overlap between Dugourc’s participation in the wallpaper enterprise and his

182

Notes to Pages 92–109

playing card partnership with Jaume. See Baulez, “Imaginations de Dugourc,” 43n80. 90. I am grateful to Paul Harper for his help in researching Dugourc’s card business. 91. Depaulis, Cartes de la Révolution, 20. 92. Scott, “Chardin and the Art of Building Castles,” 41. 93. Dugourc and Jaume, Nouvelles cartes à jouer, 2. 94. Ibid. 95. Ibid., 3. 96. Ibid., 4. 97. Author correspondence with Thierry Depaulis, May 4, 2016. 98. On the importance of language and linguistic signs in revolutionary politics, see Rosenfeld, Revolution in Language. 99. Dugourc, “Demande de gratification,” 103. 100. Sancho, “Arts at the Court of Charles IV,” 27. 101. For examples of the same fabric panel in other collections, see Jolly, Fürstliche Interieurs, 178–82. 102. Charles IV appointed Dugourc on August 7, 1802. See Sancho, “Arts at the Court of Charles IV,” 27n40. 103. Baulez, “Imaginations de Dugourc,” 30. 104. On Dugourc’s failures as an architect in Spain, see ibid., 30. 105. Jordán de Urríes y de la Colina, Real Casa del Labrador, 61. 106. Rijdt, De Watteau à Ingres, 243. See also Baarsen, Paris, 1650–1900, 445. 107. Rijdt, De Watteau à Ingres, 243. 108. See Renouvier, Histoire de l’art pendant la Révolution, 374–81. 109. On the decorative arts during the Restoration, see Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, Paris, Âge d’or des arts décoratifs.

Chapter 4

1. Quoted in Murat, Man Who Thought He Was Napoleon, 23. 2. Arasse, Guillotine and the Terror, 55. 3. Quoted in Murat, Man Who Thought He Was Napoleon, 33. On the emergence of psychiatry in nineteenth-​century France, see Goldstein, Console and Classify. 4. Ibid., 34.

5. On Fontaine’s Chapelle expiatoire, see Moon, Architecture of Percier and Fontaine, coda. 6. Lucretius, De rerum natura 3.866–69; Marx, Poverty of Philosophy. 7. On carvers’ tools and the carving process, see Esterly, Lost Carving. 8. Baxandall, Limewood Sculptors of Renaissance Germany, 32. 9. Ibid., 206. 10. On the work of the Dutch sculptor, see Esterly, Grinling Gibbons. 11. On the subject of color in sculpture, see Syson, “Polychromy and Its Discontents.” 12. Streeter, “Two Carved Reliefs,” 60. 13. Kerneis, “Aubert Parent,” 59. 14. See Bonafoux, Behind the Scenes in Versailles, 156–57. 15. Archives nationales de France O 1 1171, quoted in Kerneis, “Aubert Parent,” 59. 16. The carving was not sold during the revolutionary auctions but was instead placed on reserve. In 1821, it was moved to the apartment of the duchesse d’Angoulême (Louis XVI and Marie-​Antoinette’s oldest and only surviving daughter) at the Petit Trianon and was sent to the mobilier national and on to Valenciennes, before it was eventually restored to Versailles. 17. Kerneis, “Aubert Parent,” 59. 18. Auricchio, “Pahin de la Blancherie’s Commercial Cabinet,” 47–48. 19. On the establishment of the Salon de la Correspondance in 1779, see Michel, Commerce du tableau, 155–59. 20. Maze-​Sencier, Livre des collectionneurs, 2:661. 21. See Kisluk-​Grosheide and Munger, Wrightsman Galleries, 88–89, cat. no. 32. 22. See Sotheby’s New York, January 30, 2014, lot 134. 23. Aubert-​Henri-​Joseph Parent to the comte d’Angiviller, quoted in Kerneis, “Aubert Parent,” 60. 24. Académie de France à Rome, Correspondance des directeurs, 14:421, no. 8518. 25. Kerneis, “Aubert Parent,” 62. 26. Quoted in ibid. 27. Streeter, “Two Carved Reliefs,” 53–54. 28. Ibid., 57. 29. Ibid. 30. For a summary of the 1791 constitution, see Jones, Longman Companion, 66–69.

31. Streeter, “Two Carved Reliefs,” 59. 32. For an image of Démontreuil’s work, see Jordán de Urriés y de la Colina, Real Casa del Labrador, 171, fig. 128. On Greuze, see Fried, Absorption and Theatricality. 33. Maze-​Sencier, Livre des collectionneurs, vol. 1, 662. 34. On a particularly unusual floral portrait of the Révellière-​Lépeaux family by Van Spaendonck and the trompe l’oeil painter Piat-​Joseph Sauvage, see Freund, Portraiture and Politics, 173–75. 35. On the political uses of allegory during the reign of Louis XIV, see Harth, Ideology and Culture. 36. For a discussion of Kant’s bog walk, see Neer, “Connoisseurship and the Stakes of Style,” 1–26. 37. Not all would agree with the antipoetic nature of wood. See Esterly, Lost Carving. 38. French and Co. stock sheet, Object File, European Sculpture and Decorative Arts Department, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. 39. Walczak, Artistische Wanderer. 40. Jones, Longman Companion, 195–96. See also Rance, “Historiographie de l’émigration,” 356–57. 41. Rance, “Historiographie de l’émigration,” 359. 42. Cotté, “Comte d’Angiviller,” 160. 43. Kerneis, “Aubert Parent,” 63. 44. On the notion of eighteenth-​century Switzerland as “Helvetica mediatrix,” see Cook, Jean-​Jacques Rousseau and Botany, especially chapter 3. 45. Lavater, Essai sur la physiognomie, 1:vii. 46. Ibid., 1:7. 47. Ibid., 1:22. 48. Getty Research Institute, Lavater, Règles physiognomiques, n.d., n.p. 49. Katz, Franziska von Hohenheim, 71–72, notes that the new title cost the duke 7,096 guilders and 30 kreuzer, which he listed in his account books as “unforeseen expenses.” 50. Ibid., 137. 51. Quoted in Kühn, Ehen zur linken Hand, 252–53. 52. On Lavater’s Denkzeichen, see Müller, Aus Lavaters Brieftasche. 53. I thank Elizabeth Kieffer for her help with the translation of this text. 54. See, for example, Parent, Instruction pour les élèves. 55. Johann Caspar Lavater to Juliane Schaumburg-​ Lippe, December 3 [X], 1795, in Ochwadt, “Briefwechsel.”

Notes to Pages 109–128

183

56. “Projekt zu einem Monument nach einer Idee des Ministers Lavater,” colored drawing. NLU BU S 1 B 2979, Niedersachsen Federal State Archives, Bückeburg, Germany. If this is indeed the sketch for the monument to Juliane’s mother, the date has possibly been erroneously listed as 1793, since she did not die until 1795. 57. Ochwadt, “Briefwechsel,” 85. 58. See Bindman, Ape to Apollo. 59. Percival, Appearance of Character, 159. 60. Ibid., 175. 61. Arasse, Guillotine and the Terror, 36. On the physionotrace in postrevolutionary portraiture, see Taws, “Dauphin and His Doubles,” 83. See also Mazeau, “Portraits de peu.” 62. See Stoffler, German Pietism. 63. Bergengruen, “Physiognomy of Inner Bodies,” 42. 64. Ibid., 43. 65. Ibid. 66. For the distinctions between migration, emigration, and displacement during the revolutionary period, see Walczak, Artistische Wanderer, especially 13–16. For a reprint of the list of émigrés from 1793 compiled by the National Convention, see Vallée, Émigrés de 1793. 67. Lavater, Letter to the French Directory, 9. 68. See Taws, “Dauphin and His Doubles.” 69. On these questions in the context of history, see Koselleck, Futures Past.

Chapter 5

1. On dealers and the English taste for French luxury in the nineteenth century, see Davis, Tastemakers. 2. De Bellaigue, Louis XVI Service, 8. 3. Ibid. 4. See d’Albis, “Two Controversial Decisions.” 5. For a comprehensive list of Brongniart’s publications, see the bibliography in Ostergard and Préaud, Sèvres Porcelain Manufactory, 399–400. 6. See, for example, Richardson, “Unlikely Citizens?” 7. Brunet and Préaud, Sèvres, 30–32. 8. On caillouté patterns and natural history in ancien régime France, see Carey, “Mineralogy, Microscopes, and Caillouté,” 118–31. 9. Brunet and Préaud, Sèvres, 32.

184

Notes to Pages 128–142

10. On the science of Sèvres hard-​paste and soft-​paste clay bodies and glazes, see d’Albis, “Sèvres.” 11. On the longer history of a “Golden Age” and the concept of “natural republicanism” in France before and after the Revolution, see Edelstein, Terror of Natural Right, 13–14. 12. De Bellaigue, Louis XVI Service, 13. 13. Ibid., 4. De Bellaigue notes that there are discrepancies between the two primary documents recording delivery of the service. 14. On porcelain and diplomacy, see Cassidy-​Geiger, Fragile Diplomacy. 15. Schwarz and Munger, “Gifts of Meissen Porcelain,” 145. 16. Quoted in Perrin-​Khelissa, “De l’objet d’agrément,” 160. 17. See Blaufarb, Great Demarcation. 18. Perrin-​Khelissa, “De l’objet d’agrément,” 161. 19. See Richardson, “Unlikely Citizens?,” 136–37. 20. See ibid., figs. 65 and 74–84. 21. For a more lavish example of a revolutionary cup and saucer painted by two ancien régime artists who worked on the Louis XVI dinner service, see de Bellaigue, French Porcelain, 3:869–71, cat. no. 236. For another cup decorated by Chanou, see Roditi, “Minute Sèvres Revolutionary Gobelet.” 22. Sèvres did, however, continue making services during the revolutionary period primarily for the export market. See Peters, Sèvres Plates, especially 1:208–53, which offers a fascinating glimpse of the change in clientele for Sèvres decorated plates from 1789 to 1801. 23. See de Bellaigue, French Porcelain, 3:926–27, cat. no. 260, which features a similar déjeuner set with painted decoration from the early nineteenth century. 24. These evocative descriptors were used by members of the commission tasked with the revolutionary auctions. See Gaillard, “Commissaires-​priseurs,” 184. 25. Ozouf, Festivals and the French Revolution, especially 106–10. See also Edelstein, Terror of Natural Right, 231–49. 26. Quoted in Ozouf, Festivals and the French Revolution, 110–11. 27. Edelstein, Terror of Natural Right, 249–50. 28. Richardson, “Unlikely Citizens?,” 148, 179.

29. I am grateful to Matthew Shaw for his help in deciphering the sundial’s system. 30. On the difference between temps vrai (real time) and mean time, see Landes, Revolution in Time, 121–22. 31. See Alder, Measure of All Things. 32. Shaw, Time and the French Revolution, 128. 33. On the cultural politics of the calendar, see Perovic, Calendar in Revolutionary France. 34. On nature and extinction, see Kolbert, Sixth Extinction. 35. Taws, Politics of the Provisional, 80. 36. Weber, Terror and Its Discontents, 67. 37. See Hunt, Politics, Culture, and Class, 96–98. 38. Quoted in Miller, Natural History of Revolution, 1. 39. Ibid., 1–2. 40. Lagacey, Making Space for the Dead, 33–34. 41. De Launay, Brongniart, 60. 42. Ibid., 61. 43. Ibid., 64–67. 44. Ibid., 51; De Launay notes that Brongniart volunteered in the national guard in 1789 while still a student. 45. Ibid., 70. 46. Ibid., 52. 47. Rudwick, “Cuvier, Brongniart, William Smith,” 25–26. 48. Ibid., 26. 49. De Launay, Brongniart, 3; on the voluntary scientific societies, see Belhoste, Paris Savant, 234–37. 50. Rudwick, Bursting the Limits of Time, 334. On Cuvier’s life in the intellectual milieu of postrevolutionary Paris, see Outram, Georges Cuvier. 51. On the Cuvier-​Geoffroy debates in the context of romantic science, see Tresch, Romantic Machine, 160–67. 52. De Launay, Brongniart, 73. 53. Rudwick, Bursting the Limits of Time, 354. 54. Ibid., 360–61. On the military’s contributions to French natural history during the Revolution, see Lipkowitz, “ ‘Elephant in the Room.’ ” On the distinction between mammoths and elephants, see Cohen, Fate of the Mammoth. 55. On wonder and collections, see Daston and Park, Wonder. See also Bredekamp, Lure of Antiquity. 56. Rudwick, Bursting the Limits of Time, 363. 57. Though Cuvier’s lecture was published in 1796, he later published a more comprehensive account

of his findings in Recherches sur les ossemens fossiles. 58. Schechter, Genealogy of Terror. 59. Plinval de Guillebon, “Manufacture de porcelaines,” 177. 60. On the surtout de table purchased by Morris, see Detweiler, George Washington’s Chinaware, 107–18. On the service purchased from Moustier, see in the same book, 123–34. On another service made by the factory for the American market, see Frelinghuysen, “Paris Porcelain Dinner Service,” 283–90. 61. Quoted in Schreider, “Gouverneur Morris,” 480. 62. See Moon, “Stormy Weather,” 112–27. 63. Plinval de Guillebon, Porcelain of Paris, 49. 64. Delamétherie, Journal de physique, 355. 65. Ibid. 66. Ibid., 361. 67. Ibid., 358. 68. Plinval de Guillebon, Porcelain of Paris, 51. 69. On porcelain and preservation during the Bourbon Restoration, see Harkett, “Medium as Museum.” 70. On Stubbs’s work with Wedgwood, see Egerton, George Stubbs, Painter. On Wedgwood in France, see Edwards, “Dominique Daguerre and Josiah Wedgwood.” 71. On revolutionary portraiture, see Freund, Portraiture and Politics; and Halliday, Facing the Public. 72. See Guinot, Jacques Barraband. 73. I thank Cyrille Froissart for this information. 74. Froissart believes that Joseph Chavane de Dalmassy, a naturalist, purchased the porcelain plaque at the 1798 Salon. Froissart, auction report for November 17, 2018, sale at Briscadieu, Bordeaux, 6. 75. See Schechter, “Gothic Thermidor” and Lajer-​ Burcharth, Necklines. 76. Quoted in Plinval de Guillebon, “Manufacture de porcelaines,” 185. 77. On Coste in the context of architectural manuals in the early nineteenth century, see Garric, Recueils d’Italie, 123–24. 78. Coste and Marchand, Cours d’études de paysages, “Explication des planches,” (n.p). 79. Ibid., plate 39. 80. Michel Alquier to Tallyrand, Aranjuez, 20 Floréal, year VIII (May 10, 1800), quoted in Bottineau, Art de cour dans l’Espagne, 189.

Notes to Pages 143–159

185

81. See, for example, de Bellaigue, French Porcelain, 1133–35, cat. nos. 340–42 biscuit figures, probably purchased as a group by François Benois from Dihl et Guérhard for George IV. 82. For a summary of the coup, see Moon, Architecture of Percier and Fontaine, 129–30. 83. Préaud, “Brongniart as Administrator,” 43. 84. Ibid., 44. 85. Ibid. 86. Brongniart officially ended soft-​paste production at Sèvres on 1 Germinal, year IX (March 22, 1801); Préaud, “Brongniart as Administrator,” 53. 87. D’Albis, “Two Controversial Decisions,” 150. 88. See Moon, Architecture of Percier and Fontaine, 130. 89. Préaud, “Brongniart as Administrator,” 45. 90. Ibid. 91. See Blix, From Paris to Pompeii. 92. See Préaud, “Catalogue of the Exhibition,” 167, cat. no. 2. 93. Etlin, Architecture of Death, 249–50. 94. See Lagacey, Making Space for the Dead, 31–32. 95. Quoted in ibid., 31. 96. See Clarke, Commemorating the Dead. 97. Etlin, Architecture of Death, 229. 98. Ibid., 250. 99. Ibid., 251. 100. Giraud, Les tombeaux, preface.

186

Notes to Pages 159–173

101. Giraud, Les tombeaux, title page. 102. Ibid., 7. 103. Ibid., 16. 104. Ibid., 18. 105. Ibid., 20. 106. Etlin, Architecture of Death, 255. 107. Fourcroy and Mulot, Notice, 13. 108. Cuvier and Brongniart, Essai sur la géographie minéralogique, 2. 109. Rudwick, Bursting the Limits of Time, 483. 110. See Blanchot, Writing of the Disaster. 111. Porterfield and Siegfried, Staging Empire.

Coda

1. On Daviller, see Stammers, “Historian, Patriot and Paragon of Taste.” On the culture of nostalgia in postrevolutionary France, see Dodman, What Nostalgia Was. See also Fritzsche, “Specters of History.” 2. See the furnishing fabrics in Jolly, Fürstliche Interieurs, 164–71. 3. Quoted in Lentz, Sacre de Napoléon, 78. 4. See Orlando, Obsolete Objects. 5. See Huet, Culture of Disaster, especially chapter 6. 6. Falluel, “Éventails révolutionnaires,” 34–39.

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Italicized page references indicate illustrations. Endnotes are referenced with “n” followed by the endnote number.

index

Adam, Pierre, 60 aesthetic authority, transfer to open market after fall of monarchy, 19, 172 Affiches, annonces et avis divers, ou Journal général de France, advertisements for second-​hand luxury goods, 8–9 Alberti, Leon Battista, 111 Albis, Antoine d’, 160 Alcan, Abraham, 33 d’Allarde law of 1791, 7, 54 Allégorie de l’amour de Louis XVI pour ses sujets (Parent), 113–14, 193n16, plate 17 allegory, stable framework of shared meaning required for, 120 all-​seeing eye, as revolutionary symbol of vigilant surveillance, 142–43 Alquier, Charles-​Jean-​Marie, 159 ancien régime feudal system of, and hierarchical system of ownership, 28 fragmented financial system of, 55 persistence of culture after Revolution, 102 See also luxury objects in ancien régime Angiviller, Charles-​Claude Flahaut de la Billarderie, comte d’ dinner party before Revolution, 36 dispossession of, 36 Dugourc and, 77 exile of, 122 flight to Spain, 36 Morris’s covert sale of silver for, 36 and Parent, funds for education of, 114, 115 role in royal government, 36 Anglo-​French taste, origin of, 32–33 Angoulême, duc d’, 151 Anisson-​Dupéron, Étienne-​Alexandre-​Jacques Dugourc’s distancing from, 99 printing of assignats by, 55, 99 See also Manufacture républicain wallpaper company (Dugourc and Anisson-​Dupéron) Anne of ​Brittany, heart-​shaped reliquary made for, 62 arabesque decorations in antiquity, 87

arabesque decorations (continued) association with Oriental licentiousness, 87 collective myths of the feminine (maternal economy) activated by, 73–74 Dugourc and, 72–73 design of, post-​revolution, 73 design of, under monarchy, 72 historical malaise in, 89 resurgence at end of 18th century, 72 signature design techniques of, 75–76 similar designs by others, 86 use of figures in, 75 Winnicott’s string therapy for traumatized children and, 89 and grottesche, 87 history of, 85–88 loose marks as characteristic of, 88 nonmimetic quality of, 87 popularity during Revolution, 72 popularity in prerevolutionary France, 74 resurgence at end of 18th century, 72 Arabesques (Dugourc) and allegory imposed on arabesque, 85 as amateur print-​making experiment, 84–85 and arabesque as artwork, 85, 88 and arabesques as symbolic entanglement in past paths of others, 90 and claimed invention of arabesques, 86 and deviation from Renaissance standards, 88 and Dugourc’s anxiety about the feminine, 88–89 Dugourc’s later use of motifs from, 104 Dugourc’s signatures on plates in, 88 free play and invention in, 88 plates in, 85, 86 title page of, 84, 85 Vénus ou la Coquetterie plate in, 85, 89, 90 Archives de la Seine, records on river suicides, 93 Archives de Seine-​et-​Oise, records of ​Versailles auctions in, 31–32 Armand, Louis-​Denis, 156 Armoire de Fer scandal, 58 art, new post-​revolution understanding of, 11 L’art du brodeur (Saint-​Aubin), 77 artisans and exiled French court, disassociation from, 10 flight of some to other markets, 10, 44 identities, “family romances” shaping, 12

202

Index

and irreplaceable royal patronage, 33–34 in Paris, royal government oversight of, 46 reduced regulation after Revolution, 54 and remaking of standards of taste, 9–10 shifting meanings of works, 9–10 varying political positions of, 10 work removing royal insignias from objects, 33–34 artists, post-​revolution and irreplaceable royal patronage, 33–34 licensing of, 73 post-​revolution equality with artisans, 73 and subjective responses to Revolutionary environment, 3 survival and self-​reinvention, 1–2 use of courts to protect intellectual property, 73 Artois, comte d’ and Bagatelle, 75 flight from France, 122 See also Charles X (king of ​France) arts, promotion of, in post-​revolution France, 7 Asselin, Charles-​Éloi, 135 assignats anxieties raised by, 55–56 deflation of, 9, 11, 31 engraving and printing of, 55 financial havoc caused by, 42 first issue, picture of ​Louis XVI on, 55, 55 initial issued as bonds, 42, 55 issue by National Assembly, 42 and memories of past failed efforts at paper currency, 56 printing by Anisson-​Dupéron, 99 removal from circulation, 42 and small change, lack of, 56, 57 transition into national paper currency, 42, 55 trompe l’oeil images of, 42, 43 use at Versailles auctions, 17, 33 wildly fluctuating value of, 33 auctions and Auguste’s liquidation of assets, 68 credit extended to buyers in, 30 in eighteenth century, competition among collectors at, 29 English-​style, introduction of, 29 history of, 28–29 near end of ​Louis XVI’s reign, and crown’s entanglement with Parisian luxury, 29–30

newly-​created auction houses to sell confiscated luxury items, 34–35 as temporal rupture in life of object, 29 use for political dispossessions, history of, 28 auctions by revolutionary government of confiscated jewels, 31 of contents of royal residences, 17 from court, church, and émigrés, 17 elimination of traces of monarchy as goal of, 17–18 National Convention authorization of, 28, 30 number of items from each royal residence, 177n58 and redistribution of ​luxury, 37 See also Versailles auctions (1793-94) Auguste, Charles-​Louis in Géard’s portrait of Auguste family, 60 name change by, 68 renouncement of father, 68 Auguste, Henry accusations of dishonesty against, 67 Beckford’s admiration for work of, 52 Beckford’s commissions for, 51–52 candelabra pair for Duke of ​York, 52, 52 casket with figure of ​Morpheus, 64, plate 9 change of profession after Revolution, 44 condemnation by French state, 44 and currency, debates on, 44, 54–55, 56–57 damaged reputation of, 67, 68, 70 death in Haiti, 68 and Haiti as the site of postcolonial futurity, 12 as reflection on his earlier life, 44, 69 debts of, 60 amount of, 67 attempts to flee country, 67–68 auctioning of seized crates of goods to pay, 68 problems created by, 67 range of creditors, 68 state’s holding of family responsible for, 68 designs drawn by, 49, 50 display at Exposition des produits de l’industrie française, 65–66 dispossession of, ties to larger dissolutions, 44 dwindling number of commissions during Revolution, 54 eclectic interests of, 60–61 and émigrés, unpaid bills left by, 54 and Empire revival of ​luxury items, 64–65, 180n111 and executions of royal family, 25

flight to Jamaica, 12, 44 preparations for, 68 seizure of crates of ​his possessions, 68, 69 trial in absentia, 68, 69 Gérard portrait of family of, 59–60, plate 6 and gold luxury items, danger of ​being converted into currency, 12 grand vermeil de l’empereur by, 65, 66 in Haiti limited information on, 68, 69 as poetic justice, 70 reasons for choice of, 69 inventory of ​household goods at wife’s death, 60–61 large workshop of, by 1807, 66–67 love of wife, and narratives of postrevolutionary material culture, 64 mark, new, during revolutionary period, 59, 59 mark deposited at royal mint, 46 Moitte as designer for, 49–51 neoclassical style of, popularity through Napoleonic era, 59 and paper currency, debate on, 12 parents and background of, 46 popularity with English buyers, 52 post-​revolution continued sales from shop, 58 engraving work, 57, 58–59 experiments with metals, 54, 57, 58, 61 as head of refinery of ​Paris and Lyon mint, 58 Moitte’s distancing from, 59 plagiarism accusations against, 59 political change, 117–18 ransacking of churches by, 57–58 smithing innovations by, 66 sons’ renouncing of, 68, 70 success as goldsmith, 48 survival of reputation of, 70 tiara for Pius VII, 65 toilet service for Countess of Aranda, 52 tureen on footed stand, design for, 49, 50 turn from goldsmithing to metallurgy, 11–12 and Versailles auctions, as means of resolving debts, 19 work in father’s goldsmithing business, 48 See also “Beckford-​Béhague” gold ewer (Auguste); heart reliquary of Madeleine-​Julie Coustou (Auguste)

Index

203

Auguste, Jules-​Robert in Géard’s portrait of Auguste family, 60 renouncement of father, 68 Auguste, Robert-​Joseph auction purchases on credit, 30 designers used by, 49 as father of ​Henry August, 46 as goldsmith to Louis XV, 48 as goldsmith to Louis XVI, 46 August III (elector of Saxony), 139 Aumont, duc d’, auction of collection, 29–30 Au temps des merveilleuses (2005 exhibition), 7 authorship, new post-​revolution understanding of, 11 Aux armes et aux arts! (Bordes and Michel), 2–3 Babeuf, Gracchus, 93, 159 Bagatelle, design and construction of, 74–76, 75 bals des victimes, 63, 156 Barge, Louise-​Élisabeth, 46 Barraband, Jacques, 155–56, plate 27 Barras, Paul, 34 Batellier, Jean-​César, 142, 143 Baudard de Saint-​James, Claude, 74 Baulez, Christian, 72, 75, 76 Baxandall, Michael, 111, 112, 122 Beauvais tapestries, payment of military contractor with, 33 Beauvais tapestry factory, post-​revolution continuation of royal commissions, 20–21 Becher, Johann Joachim, 166 Beckford, William and Auguste, risks of dealing with, 67 banishment from England, 52 and gothic literature, 64 origin of family wealth, 64 purchase and export of ​French luxury items, 43 purchase of ​Dihl et Guérhard porcelains, 159 purchases from Auguste, 43, 51–52, 58, 64, plate 9 Vathek, 64 “Beckford-​Béhague” gold ewer (Auguste), 43–44, plate 5 and aesthetic anxieties about value, 43 as commission from Beckford, 43 design influences on, 67 design of, described, 44–45, 45 as not meant for use, 52 purity of gold used in, 43, 44 scholarship on, 43–44

204

Index

weight of, 44 Béhague, Martine-​Marie-​Pol de, comtesse de Béarn, 43 Bélanger, François-​Joseph and Bagatelle, design of, 74 career in royal administration, 13 on Dugourc in Spain, 103 Dugourc’s marriage to sister of, 74 on Dugourc’s talent, 78 Dugourc’s work with, 74, 88 and goût étrusque, invention of, 72 imprisonment of, 96 influence on Dugourc, 13 Bellaigue, Geoffrey de, 138 Belle-​Isle, maréchal de, 139 Beneman, Guillaume, 33–34 Bergengruen, Maximilian, 130 Beurdeley, Michel, 9, 18 Biennais, Martin-​Guillaume career of, 54 designers used by, 50 as Napoleon’s favorite goldsmith, 66 and Napoleon’s imperial septre, 65 works for imperial court, 172 Birds (Barraband), 155–56, plate 27 Blanc, Charles, 60 Blancherie, Pahin de la, 114 Blaufarb, Rafe, 28 Blumenbach, Freidrich, 150 Boehmer and Bassenge, jewelers, 81–83 Boileau, Étienne, 46 Boilly, Louis-​Léopold, 8, 152, plate 2 Bonaparte, Joseph, 103 Bonaparte, Lucien, 160 Bonaparte, Napoleon air of inauthenticity surrounding, 172 coronation, critics of, 172 divorce of Josephine, 65 Dugourc drawing of, 103, 105 installation of ​brother on Spanish throne, 103 marriage to Marie-​Louise, 65 revival of ​French luxury industries, 136, 172 and revival of goldsmiths’ art, 64–65 and rise of ​literary tradition celebrating worn and ruined things, 172 rise to power, 160 tiara given to Pius VII, 65 Bordes, Philippe, 2–3

Bosio, François-​Joseph, 24 Bouillat, Edmé-​François, 142, plate 21 Boulle, André-​Charles, furniture made by auctions of, 29 in Louvre, 39 selection for national Muséum, 31 Boulton, Matthew, 69 Bourbon Restoration and divided collective memory, 109 and images of royal family, 131–32 and monument to Louis XVI, 109 return of ​king and queen to royal tombs at Saint-​ Denis, 26, 27 and Royalists’ desire for vengeance, 27 Boy Building a House of Cards (Chardin), 100 Breguet, Abraham-​Louis, 143 Brewer, George, 123 Brongniart, Alexandre as army pharmacist in Barèges, 147 arrest for suspected treason, 147 background of, 147 and career in sciences, 136, 161–62 choice of career, 147 Cuvier’s influence on, 137 on Dihl’s invention of colorfast enamels, 153 eclectic interests of, 136, 137 Essai sur la géographie minéralogique des environs de Paris, 136 father of cemetery design by, 164 as designer for Sèvres, 161, 164 and Festival of the Unity and Indivisibility of the Republic, failure to attend, 146 geological research by, 15, 136 geological work with Cuvier, and Sèvres management, similarities of, 168–69 as head of Sèvres porcelain manufactory, 15 remapping of ​Paris with Cuvier, enabling of, by language of terror, 150 and revolutionary politics of regeneration, effect on geological work of, 137 and Société philomathique, 148 as student at École des Mines, 148 as student at Sociétè d’Histoire naturelle, 146 support for Revolution, 147 ties to revolutionary scientific community, 15 travel during Revolution, 147

travel in England, 147 work with Cuvier, 148 See also Essai sur la géographie minéralogique des environs de Paris (Cuvier and Brongniart); Sèvres porcelain manufactory, in revolutionary period Brosses, Charles de, 43 Broussonet, Pierre-​Auguste-​Marie, 147 Bureau de la Marque, corruption at, 47–48 burial of the dead in revolutionary period, 162–64 Giraud’s proposal for vast crematorium/cemetery/ memorial, 165, 165–66 large number of, difficulty in finding space for, 162–64 mass graves for, 164 new cemeteries founded, 164 and new secular Elysian fields trope, 164 Cagliostro, Alessandro, 123 calendar, Republican, 143 Calonne, Charles-​Alexandre de, 78 Carlier, Yves, 44 Carson, Anne, 63 carved medallion depicting Louis XVI (Parent), 126–28, plate 16 and Anglo-​Dutch limewood sculptors, 111–12 changing shadows on, over time, 133 Christian symbols in, 110–11, 132–33 continual process of deferral in, 133 dedication to Franziska von Hohenheim, 109, 111, 126 described, 109, 111 emphasis of coffin, 127–28 enactment of time required for mourning, 133 interplay of text and image in, 133 Lavater poem on verso of, 109, 111, 126–27, 127 Lavater’s physiognomy theories and, 132 lightly-​incised fleur-​de-​lis on, 132, 133 Louis XVI’s portrait in, as embodiment of ​loss, 133 and parallels between Louis XVI’s and Franziska von Hohenheim’s sorrows, 126 as personal object of mourning, 126 as private commemoration, 109 and recursion to older forms of mourning, 131 and resonances between Parent’s carving method and Lavater’s physiognomy theories, 131 sudden shifts in scale in, 131 systems of religious sentiment and secular commemoration clashing in, 133

Index

205

carved medallion depicting Louis XVI (continued) use of ​limewood association with German carving tradition, 111 characteristics of wood and, 111–12 as unusual choice, 111 casket with figure of ​Morpheus (Auguste), 64, plate 9 Castellas, Adélaïde-​Marie-​Anne, 41 Castelluccio, Stéphane, 78 Catherine the Great Dugourc’s design work for, 79 Parent’s efforts to sell works to, 114 Cellerier, Jacques, 53, 96 Cellini, Benvenuto, 46, 87 ceramics, in postrevolutionary period, adoption of republican symbols and emblems, 137, 138 Chanou, Sophie, 140, 141 Chapeaurouge, Jacques de, 33 Chardin, Jean-​Baptiste-​Siméon, 100 Charles I (king of ​England), execution of Kant on, 26 as precedent of execution of ​Louis XVI, 19, 23 Charles IV (king of Spain) Dugourc’s designs for, 103 purchase of ​Dihl et Guérhard porcelains, 159 silk panel designed by Dugourc for, 103, plate 14 Charles X (king of ​France) and monument to Louis XVI, 109 and Napoleon’s grand vermeil, 65 See also Artois, comte d’ Chartres, duc de (Philippe Égalité), 76 Chastel, André, 87 Chateaubriand, René de, 172 Chaussard, Pierre-​Jean-​Baptiste, 156 Chavane de Dalmassy, Joseph, 185n74 Christie, James, 29 Cietty, Pierre, 98 citizens, reeducation of, cards and games in, 71–72 Clark, T. J., 3 classical antiquity, French adoption as collective political language of revolution, 52–53 Clerc, Marianne, 31 Cléry, Jean-​Baptiste, 24, 71 Cobb, Richard, 93 Colbert, Jean-​Baptiste, 6 Collot d’Herbois, Jean-​Marie, 98 colonialism specter of, and European anxiety, 64

206

Index

and voudou, 69–70 Comay, Rebecca, 11 Commission des monuments, selection of items from royal collection, 31 Committee of ​Public Safety, letterhead of, 142–43 Condé, prince de, flight from France, 122 Conspiracy of the Equals, 93, 159 Constant, Benjamin, 172 Coquery, Natacha, 8 Corday, Charlotte, 61 corporations and guilds, d’Allarde law abolishing (1791), 7, 54 Coste, Jean-​Baptiste figures resting in a wooded landscape, 156, 158 and paintings for vases with landscapes, 156–57, plate 28 Saule Pleureur (with hidden silhouettes), 157–59, 158 counterrevolutionary thought, mix of religious piety and political conservatism in, 131 Cour des aides, closing of, 57 Cours d’études de paysages (Coste), 157–59 Coustou, Charles-​Pierre, 67 Coustou, Madeleine-​Julie death of, 60 Gérard painting of, 59–60, plate 6 heart reliquary of, made by husband, 61–64, plate 8 interment of, 62 role in husband’s business, 60 Critique of Judgment (Kant), 88, 121 Croizé, Louise-​Françoise-​Madeleine, 151 Crow, Thomas, 3 cultural politics of ​Revolution, scholars’ focus on origin of public museum, 39 culture of ancien régime, persistence after Revolution, 102 currency coin shortage in Republic, 55 debate on, Auguste and, 44, 54–55, 56–57 paper, with Louis XVI image, loss of value after Revolution, 11 post-​revolution, as issue, 12, 57 See also assignats Custine, comte de, 152 Cuvier, Georges arrival in Paris, 148 Brongniart’s hope of scientific career and, 162 career in science, 148

Essai sur la géographie minéralogique des environs de Paris, 136 and French military plundering, benefits from, 148–49 geological research by, 15, 136, 150 influence on Brongniart, 137 at Muséum d’Histoire naturelle, 148–49 presentation on skeleton of elephant vs. mammoth fossil, 149, 149–50 remapping of ​Paris with Brongniart, enabling of, by language of terror, 150 study of fossils, 150, 164 work with Brongniart, 148 See also Essai sur la géographie minéralogique des environs de Paris (Cuvier and Brongniart) Daguerre, Dominique, 78 Danton, Gabrielle, 64 Danton, Georges Mantel’s fictional account of, 92–93 mourning of first wife, 64 Darcet, Jean, 153 Dauphin, mysterious death at Temple (1795), and imposter Dauphins, 27 David, Jacques-​Louis central role in Revolution, 3 Dugourc and, 77 and Festival of the Unity and Indivisibility of the Republic, 146 and Fête de l’Être Suprême, 141–42 historians’ special focus on, 3 on luxury as anathema to goals for Louvre, 3 opening of, 3 painting of Joseph Bara, 151 vote to execute Louis XVI, 3 Davillier, Baron Jean Charles, 171 Dayan, Joan, 64, 69–70 dead birds, carvings of, in 1790s, 119, 120 dead bodies large number of, during revolution, 162–64 means of commemorating, as issue after dissolution of church, 163 and postrevolutionary political imaginary of ​Paris, 162 worthiness for commemoration, as issue after revolution, 163 See also burial of the dead

death, and dispersal of valued objects, 4 Declaration of the Rights of ​Man and of the Citizen, exclusion of women and enslaved Blacks from, 19 decorative arts, importance in understanding French Revolution, 15 Delacour, Charlotte-​Victoire Guairet, 76 Demarne, Jean-​Louis, 152 Demidoff, Count Nicolas, 66, 68 Démontreuil, Jean, 119, 120, 122 Dennis, Faith, 46 Denoor, Marguerite Suzanne, 31, 33 Depaulis, Thierry, 100–101 Deseine, Claude-​André, 7, 64 designers, opportunities for, in prerevolutionary France, 74 design work, Freudian psychoanalysis as interpretive framework for, 74 Desmoulins, Camille, 4 Dessalines, Jean-​Jacques, 69 Diamond Necklace Affair and criticisms of queen’s spending, 73 and jewelry cabinet of Marie-​Antoinette, 81–84 as plot to damage queen’s reputation, 81–83 Dietz, Charles, 68 Dihl, Christophe Erasimus establishment of ​Dihl et Guérhard porcelain manufactory, 151 invention of colorfast enamel for hard-​paste porcelain, 152–54, plate 25 Le Guay portrait of, on porcelain plaque, 154, plate 25 Dihl et Guérhard porcelain manufactory, 151–59 as affordable alternative to Sèvres, 151, 152 agate-​effect porcelains, 161, 163 Birds (Barraband), 155–56, plate 27 colorfast enamels, superiority of, 155–56, plate 27, plate 28 competition for elite clientele, 159 founding of, 151 hiring of successful artists, 152 increased business after fall of monarchy, 152 invention of colorfast enamels for hard-​paste porcelain, 152–54, plate 25 location of, 151 nervous, tense energy of porcelains by, 156 and new post-​revolution aesthetic, 151 number of employees, 151

Index

207

Dihl et Guérhard porcelain manufactory (continued) pair of vases with storm landscapes, 156, 157, 159, plate 28 plate with shells on the shore (ca. 1789–97), 151, plate 24 political symbolism on works by, 156, 159 protection of duc d’Angoulême, 151 and scientific developments in decorative design, 151 Directory, popularity of neoclassical style in, 59 di Somma, Tommaso, marchese di Circello, 180n111 dispersal of collections in Revolution and access of new buyers to luxury items, 171 as disaster for France, 171 failure to erase past, 37, 39 and luxury objects as polemical signifiers of ​loss, 11 and new meanings of ​luxury objects, 172 scholarship on, 9 and survival of ​luxury items as puzzle, 4 and system of state violence, 7–8, 11 See also Versailles, auctioning of objects from dispossession of émigrés, to prevent return to France, 35 of enemies of state, 8, 35 of ​King, and identity crisis for political subjects, 10–11 and liquidation of objects’ meaning, 39 political, history of auctions in, 28 scholarship on, 10 of wealthy and elite exiles, 36 Diverse Maniere (Piranesi), 75 Dodin, Charles-​Nicolas, 135 Domus Aurea, 87, 89 Drolling, Martin, 152 Drouet, Gilbert, plate 22 Dubin, Nina, 3 Dubuquoy-​Lalouette, Madame, 22 du Cerceau, Jacques Androuet, 87 Dufour, Joseph, 98 Dugourc, Jean-​Démosthène and Les animaux savants, illustrations for, 104–5 and arabesque decorations, 72–73 collective myths of the feminine (maternal economy) activated by, 73–74 design of, post-​revolution, 73 design of, under monarchy, 72 historical malaise in, 89 resurgence at end of 18th century, 72 signature design techniques of, 75–76

208

Index



similar designs by others, 86 use of figures in, 75 Winnicott’s string therapy for traumatized children and, 89 background and education, 76 and Bagatelle, work on, 75 and Bélanger, work with, 74, 88 chandelier design by, 79–80, 80 complex and enigmatic life of, 12 decision to become artist, 76 as designer for Garde-​Meuble de la Couronne, 72, 78 debt crisis and, 78 Pernon and, 80–81 and silk designs, 79, 80–81 suspicions surrounding, 73 design for decorative panel (1787 and 1808), 104–6, plate 15 designs, rich and complex personality of, 12–13 design work outside court, 78–79 disassociation from father, 76 drawing of the arrival of the funeral procession . . . with the remains of ​King Louis XVI and Queen Marie-​Antoinette, 26, 27 early commercial work, characteristics of, 77 embroidery design for a pocket and vest, 77, plate 11 and father’s debts, burden of, 76 The Garden Façade of ​Bagatelle, 75 and goût étrusque, 12, 72, 104 Hôtel Vaupalière wallpaper commission, 90–91, plate 12 imprisonment of close collaborators, 96 influence of ​Bélanger on, 13 and intellectual property rights, seizing of advantage provided by, 73, 96 lack of education in classical art, and compromise formation, 90 marriage to sister of ​Bélanger, 74 mother, death of, 76, 77 and compromise formation, 90 lasting effects from, 106 mother’s lifelong influence, 77 Napoleon Bonaparte at the Champ de Mai, 103, 105 post-​Restoration works by, 106 post-​revolution career of designs on paper, 12, 72–73, 96 letterheads designed by, 97, 98, 102 and psychic life of paperwork, 74

post-​revolution political change in, 117–18 and Restoration, reshaping of identity following, 13 and Revolution, claims to have been unaffected by, 96 and Revolution, reshaping of identity following, 12 and rights to inventions, anxiety about, 77 scholarship on, 72 self-​taught architectural knowledge, 88 in Spain, 102–6 architectural designs, 103 design for chalet at Aranjuez, 103, 104 designs for silks, 103 and French invasion, 103 greater range of designs, 103 migration to, 102–3 and representational anxieties, 106 return to Paris (1813), 106 as royal architect, 103 style of, appeal to elite, 79–80 tendency to overstate his role in projects, 76 training of, 77–78, 85 trip to Rome as young man, 76, 77, 89 variety of objects designed by, 12 works during Revolution, 96–97 work with Jacob, 111 See also Arabesques (Dugourc); jewelry cabinet (serre-​bijoux) of Marie-​Antoinette (Schwerdfeger and Dugourc); Manufacture républicain wallpaper company (Dugourc and Anisson-​Dupéron); Nouvelles Cartes de la République Française (Dugourc and Jaume) Dugourc, Jean-​François, 76 Earth, as basis of revolutionary restructuring of time, 143 Eberts, J. H., 32 Eberts brothers, 32 École royale gratuite de dessin, prohibition against depicting human form, 75 Égalité, Philippe (duc de Chartres), 76 Églantine, Philippe François Nazaire Fabre d’, 143 Élisabeth, Madame, needlepoint begun at Palais des Tuileries, 22, plate 4 Eméric-​David, Toussaint-​Bernard, 49 émigrés artisans’ bills left unpaid by, 54 banishment of, 122 confiscation of jewels from, 31

dispossession of, to prevent return to France, 35, 122 diversity of motives, paths, and receptions, 122 in England, purchase of objects from Versailles auctions, 32–33 refashioning of noble titles and names, 122 Empire elevation of decorative arts, 65 and Expositions des produits de l’industrie française, 65–66 and revival of ​luxury items, 64–65 See also Bonaparte, Napoleon enemies of the state, depriving of material possessions, 8, 35 Essais de papilloneries humaines (Saint-​Aubin), 77, 85 Essai sur la géographie minéralogique des environs de Paris (Cuvier and Brongniart), 136, 166–68 on fossils underlying Paris, 166–67, 168 and map of geological terrain around Paris, 166–67, plate 29 as map of time, 167 as record of past destructions in context of ​ French Revolution, 167–68 and maps as pictorial conquests, 166–67 and search for solid ground amid Revolution, 169 similarities to Brongniart’s work at Sèvres manufactory, 168–69 Etlin, Richard, 164 Expositions des produits de l’industrie française, 65–66 Falconet, Étienne-​Maurice, 49 Family of the Goldsmith Henri Auguste Joined Together Around a Table (Gérard), 59–60, plate 6 family ties, broken, 12 fan mounted in ivory (1795), 173, plate 30 the feminine, collective myths of, activated by arabesque decorations, 73–74 Fesch, Cardinal Joseph, 161 The Festival of the Federation (Dugourc), 96–97, 97 Festival of the Unity and Indivisibility of the Republic (1793) Brongniart’s failure to attend, 146 statues commemoration significant events of ​ Revolution at, 146 Fête de la Fédération (1790) citizens’ work on construction for, 144, 144 Dugourc’s The Festival of the Federation image of, 96–97, 97

Index

209

Fête de la Fédération (continued) Louis XVI’s work at, as demonstration of ​his leveled status, 144–45, 145 Moitte’s design of arch for, 53, 53–54 Roman festivals as model for, 144 Fête de l’Être Suprême (Festival of the Supreme Being) described, 141–42 revolutionary period déjeuner (tea set) depicting, 142, plate 21 feudal system of ancien régime, and hierarchical system of ownership, 28 Feuillants (constitutional monarchists), expulsion of, 22 financial crises, scholars’ interest in, 42–43 financial crisis of ​late 1780s citizens’ donations to avert, 41–42, 42 and Dugourc, 78 and Louis XVI’s spending of dinner service, 136, 139 Republican government and, 55 and royal family donations of silver and gold to national mint, 41 support for American Revolution, 136, 139 Flahaut de la Billarderie, Charles-​Claude, comte d’Angiviller. See Angiviller, Charles-​Claude Flahaut de la Billarderie, comte d’ Fogg, Robert, 135 Foliot, François-​Toussaint, 4, plate 1 Fontaine, Pierre-​François-​Léonard, 79, 109, 156, 172 Fontainebleau, arabesque decorations at, 87 Forcart-​Weiss, Rudolf, 122 Fouquet, Nicolas, embezzlement by, 28 The Four Continents (Le Barbier) America tapestry from, 21, plate 3 post-​revolution continuation of royal commission for, 20–21, 176n14 Fourcroy, Antoine-​François and Dihl’s invention of colorfast enamel for hard-​ paste porcelain, 153 recovery of ​Brongniart from jail, 147 France, and colonial memory, 69 fraternity, and “family romances” shaping artisinal identities, 12 Frederick (Duke of ​York), pair of candelabra by Auguste made for, 52, 52 Freeman, Andrew, 58 French Revolution as consequence of ​Protestant Reformation, 130 importance of decorative arts in understanding, 15

210

Index

and search for solid ground, 169 Freudian psychoanalysis, as interpretive framework for design work, 74 Freund, Amy, 3, 154 Fureix, Emmanuel, 24 Gaillard, Remi, 9, 19, 30, 177n58 Gamain, François, 20, 58, 113 games, post-​revolution, focus on education of citizens, 72 Garat, Dominque-​Joseph, 140 Garcia, Pilar Benito, 72 Garde-​Meuble de la Couronne auctioning of old-​fashioned or damaged royal property, 28–29 Bélanger at, 13 brocaded silks, last examples of, 91, 92 Dugourc as designer for, 78 efforts to cut expenses, 78 inventories of royal collection, 32 luxury goods stored by, 27–28 and Palais des Tuileries, improvements during King’s residence, 20, 21 responsibilities of, 78 revolutionaries’ use of furniture from, 31 and royal representation, 20 silks stored in, use in imperial palaces, 172 suspension of work at, 92 The Garden Façade of ​Bagatelle (Dugourc), 75 Gastinel-​Coural, Chantal, 72 Gathering Manna in the Desert (Poussin), 28 Gault de Saint-​Germain, Pierre-​Marie, 9 Gély, Louise Sébastienne, 64 General Maximum Law of 1793, 8 geognosy, in 18th century, 148 geology in 18th century, 148 emergence as discipline with French military expansion, 148 George IV (king of ​England) purchase of ​Dihl et Guérhard porcelains, 159 purchase of dispossessed Sèvres porcelain, 135 Gérard, François career of, 59–60 commission to paint events of August 10, 59 Family of the Goldsmith Henri Auguste Joined Together Around a Table, 59–60, plate 6

German sensualism, feeling in, 130 Gibbons, Grinling, 112, 115 Giraud, Pierre. See Les tombeaux, ou Essai sur les sépultures (Giraud) Gobelins tapestry works revolutionaries’ criticisms of, 139–40 and use of ​luxury goods to consolidate authority, 6 Godineau, Dominique, 93 Godon, François-​Louis, 103 Gois, Étienne-​Pierre-​Adrien, 114 gold destabilization of symbolic value after Revolution, 43 replacement of value by paper money, 58 Spanish invasion of Cuba and, 43 gold luxury objects marks (poinçons) on, significance of, 46–47 purity standards for, 47 goldsmiths art historians’ focus on cost of materials, 46 association with wealth, and risk of denunciation by revolutionaries, 54 concerns about potential fraud by, 46 fraudulent practitioners as problem for, 47–48 government oversight of, 46 loss of patronage with Revolution, 44 marks of abolishment by revolutionary government, 57 attempts to restore system, 57 loss of meaning after Revolution, 54 registering of, 46 significance of, 46–47 melting down of works in hard times as ever-​present risk, 45–46, 48 as exercise of royal power, 48 and narratives of ​French Revolution, 45 post-​revolution, freedom from regulation, 54 See also Auguste, Henry goldsmiths corporation power of, 46 process for becoming master, 46 Goncourt brothers, 171 Gondoin, Jacques, 4, plate 1 goût étrusque characteristics of, 12 claimed invention of, by Dugourc and Bélanger, 12, 72, 86 Dugourc’s use of, 104

scholarship on, 72 Gouthière, Pierre, 30, 78 Grand vermeil de l’empereur (Auguste), 65, 66 Gratet de Dolomieu, Déodat, 147 Greuze, Jean-​Baptiste, 119 Grigsby, Darcy Grimaldo, 3 Grimm, Friedrich Melchior, baron von, 35 grottesche, and arabesque, 87 Guérhard, Antoine, 151, 152 Guichard, Charlotte, 84 guillotine, 108 as exemplary instrument of ​Terror, 107 parallels to physiognomic portrait, 129 public’s fascination with, 107–9 scholarship on, 15 See also Louis XVI, guillotining of Guyton de Morveau, Louis-​Bernard, 153 Habsburg dynasty, Napoleon’s marriage into, 65 Haiti Auguste as common name in, 69 and colonial memory, 69 and Empire style, 65 Henry Auguste in death in, 12, 44, 68, 69 limited information on, 68, 69 as poetic justice, 70 reasons for choice of, 69 political turmoil of early 19th century, 69 Halliday, Anthony, 3 Haly, Pierre, 61, 62, 179n96 Hauré, Jean, 78 heart reliquary of Madeleine-​Julie Coustou (Auguste), 61–64, plate 8 burial under parish church of Saint-​Léonard, 61 described, 61–64, plate 8 family relations engraved on, 62–63 as gothic aberration from Auguste’s work, 64 and gothic Thermidor, 63 lack of Christian sentiment on, 62 mass graves of ​Revolution as context for, 63–64 and mourning in postrevolutionary period, 63 and notable hearts of period, 61 rarity of, 61–62 viewed through Auguste’s Haiti residence, 69 Hébert, Jacques, 32 Hercy, 108

Index

211

history writing, similarity to lace making, 93 Hohenheim, Franziska von (duchess of ​Württemberg) background of, 126 and Lavater, 126 Parent’s carved Louis XVI medallion dedicated to, 109, 111, 126 title purchased for, by Duke of ​Württemberg, 126 title stripped from, by Duke’s family, 126 Hommage à la deuxième legislature (Moitte), 41, 42, 53, 54 hôtel Bullion, sale of confiscated luxury items at, 35 Hôtel Vaupalière seizure and sale by revolutionary government, 91, 99 wallpaper by Dugourc, 90–91, plate 12 Houdon, Jean-​Antoine, 147 Hunt, Lynn, 11, 12 Hunter, William, 150 identity, possessions as part of, 6 Institut national des sciences et arts Cuvier presentation at, 149–50 and Dihl’s invention of colorfast enamel for hard-​ paste porcelain, 153 and public access to innovations, 152 intellectual property rights in postrevolutionary France, 7, 11 and courts’ role in judging value, 11 and design work, flourishing of, 73 and new rules on copying works of others, 59 Isabey, Jean-​Baptiste, 152 Jacob, Georges carved furniture by, 111 Dugourc and, 78, 111 furniture by, sold in Versailles auctions, 32 and Napoleon’s throne, 65 Jacob-​Desmalter, François-​Honoré- Georges, 78 Jacobin faction, rise of, 22 Jacqué, Bernard, 21 Janety, Marc-​Etienne, 54 Jaume, Urbain. See Nouvelles Cartes de la République Française (Dugourc and Jaume) Jean-​Baptiste-​Claude Odiot (Lefèvre), 60, 70, plate 7 Jesus, sacred heart of, as symbol of royalist sympathies, 61 jewelry cabinet (serre-​bijoux) of Marie-​Antoinette (Schwerdfeger and Dugourc), 81–84, 82 described, 81

212

Index

and Diamond Necklace Affair, 81–84 as Dugourc’s most prestigious design, 81 Dugourc’s wood model of, 81, 83 Dugourc’s work on, 83–84 jewels, confiscation and auctioning of, 31 Jolivet, Étienne death sentence for, 96 proposal for silk assignats, 94–95, 95 Joubert (publishing house), 85–86 Jozeau, Mathurin-​Pierre, 76 Jullienne, Jean de, 48 Julliot, Claude-​François, 30 Junquera, Juan José, 72 The Juvenile Lavater (Brewer), 123 Kabinet van mode en smaak (1794), 37–39, 109 Kafka, Ben, 74 Kant, Immanuel on arabesque decoration, 88 on murder of ​Louis XVI, 25–27 on wood carvings, 121 kaolin, and porcelain manufacture, 138, 162, 168 Kerneis, Anne-​Marie, 119 kings of ​France royal inventories of treasures, 22 typical grand funerals of, symbolism of, 23–24 Kohle, Hubertus, 3 Koselleck, Reinhart, 171 Laborde, Jean-​Joseph de, 74 La France à l’encan, 1789–1799 (Beurdeley), 9 Lagrenée, Jean-​Jacques, 115 Lajer-​Burcharth, Ewa, 3 Lanskoi, Alexander, 79 Laocoön, influence of, 67 Lavater, Johann Caspar as critic of ​Directory government in Switzerland, 131 Denkzeichen by, 127 design for monument to mother of ​Princess Juliane Schaumburg-​Lippe, 128, 129 and Franziska von Hohenheim, 126 friendship with Parent, 123, 124–25 funerary projects with Parent, 126–28 influence on Parent, 130–31 and neo-​Pietist faith in Swiss-​German regions, 130 poem on verso of ​Parent’s medallion depicting Louis XVI, 109, 111, 126–27, 127

promotion of ​Parent to female patrons, 126 Règles physiognomiques dedication of manuscript copy to Parent, 124, 124–25 facial studies in, 125 Lavater, physiognomy theories of common interpretation as pseudoscience, 128 and facial expression at death, significance of, 129 famous men’s interest in, 124, 125 and focus of fixed face vs. pathognomy, 128–29 influence of, 123, 124 and Parent’s carved medallion depicting Louis XVI, 132 and Parent’s carving method, 131 philosophical principles underlying, 130 research on, 124 role of art in, 125 studies of famous men, 125 Lavoisier, Antoine Brongniart’s interest in work of, 147 and standard nomenclature for chemistry, 153 Law, John, 56 Law of the Grand Terror (Law of 22 Prairial), 142 Le Barbier, Jean-​Jacques-​François The Four Continents tapestry by, 20–21, 176n14, plate 3 tapestries designed by, 33 Lebas, Louis-​Hippolyte, 50 Le Brun, Charles, 123, 128–29 Le Brun, Élisabeth Vigée, 31, 122 Le Brun, Jean-​Baptiste-​Pierre, 7, 31 Le Chapelier law of 1791, forbidding of unionization, 54 Lefèvre, Robert Jacques François, 60, 70, plate 7 Le Guay, Étienne-​Charles, 152, 154, plate 25 Le Guay, Étienne-​Henri, 38 Le Guay, Étienne-​Henri, père, 135 Lemoyne, Jean-​Baptiste, 49 Le Nain brothers, 100 le Peletier de Saint-​Fargeau, Louis-​Michel, 146 Levaillant, François, 156 Lhuillier, François-​Daniel, 75 Lignereux, Martin-​Eloy, 78 limewood carving of, association with German carving tradition, 111 characteristics of, 111–12 See also carved medallion depicting Louis XVI (Parent)

Livre de caricatures (Saint-​Aubin), 85 locksmiths, power during Revolution, 58 Le Loggie de Rafaele nel Vaticano (Volpato), 85 Lorthior, Pierre Joseph, 55, 55 Louis XIV and auctions for political dispossession, 28 funeral and interment of, 23–24 and government oversight of artisinal communities, 46 and silver furniture, melting-​down of, 46, 48 silver melted to fund War of the League of Augsburg, 48 use of ​luxury goods to consolidate authority, 6 Louis XV and auctioning of old-​fashioned or damaged royal property, 28–29 and Sèvres porcelain manufactory, 137 and use of ​luxury goods to consolidate authority, 6 Louis XVI and Armoire de Fer scandal, 58 attacks diminishing authority of, 22 and auction of Aumont’s collection, 30 burial in mass grave, 25, 63–64, 109 commemorations of, 109 donation of silver and gold toward national debt, 41 guillotining of, 1, 2, 22–23 as contrast to typical grand funerals of ​kings of ​ France, 23–24 crowd’s celebration following, 25 and cutting loose of ​luxury industry in France, 1 as demonstration of equality of all citizens, 23 as disaster for France, 171 as effort to destroy institution of divine kingship, 23 execution of Charles I as precedent for, 19, 23 faience plate commemorating, 145, 145 final words, 23, 107 Kant on, 25–27 and lack of funeral, 24 National Convention vote for, 71 and nourishment of the Earth with his blood, 145 revolutionaries’ characterization as necessary sacrifice, 24 and Royalists’ desire for vengeance, 27 and Royalists’ mourning, 15 and Royalists’ private devotional objects, 15 and subsequent auctioning of ​his possessions, 17

Index

213

Louis XVI (continued) guillotining of (continued) and transformation of ​luxury objects into royal relics, 10, 27 witnesses’ descriptions of, 107–9 imprisonment, trial and sentencing of, 22, 71 ironwork and locks as hobby of, 20, 113 last will and testament, 22, 24, 71 Parent carving for, in honor of ​his visit to Valenciennes, 113–14, 193n16, plate 17 revolutionaries’ attempt to dehumanize, 24–25 spending on luxury items, criticisms of, 6 and trial of Cardinal de Rohan, 81–83 See also carved medallion depicting Louis XVI (Parent) Louis XVI dinner service (1983-93), plate 20 and annual display of porcelain, 137, 139 described, 135 halting of production after fall of monarchy, 136, 139 high cost of, 135–36 high cost, as reasonable in context, 139 Louis’s special interest in, 138–39 purchase by George IV of ​England, 135 themes of decorations, 138–39 time required to make, 135 Louvre Museum David on luxury as anathema to goals of, 3 founding, scholarship on, 3 initial organization by style, criticisms of, 7 selection of items from royal collection for, 30–31 and Sèvres porcelain, banning of, 7 Lucien, Jean-​Baptiste, 42 Lucotte, J. R., 46, 47 luxury post-​revolution, redefinition according to personal taste, 8–9, 16, 39 as term, 6 luxury industry in France cutting loose of, with guillotining of ​Louis XVI, 1 economic collapse after Revolution, 7 and kinship and family model of politics, 12 luxury objects brisk second-​hand market in, during Terror, 8–9 citizens’ views of, as product of view of past, 9 and dialectical engagement with the past, 173 existence without patrons, 172 multiple meanings hidden in, 173

214

Index

Revolutionaries’ responses to as corrupting influence on citizens, 7 mix of desire and rejection in, 6 as objects of contempt and political violence, 4–6, 5 redesignation as national wealth, 4 as waste of resources, 6–7 transformation into polemical objects of contested past, 1–2, 37 luxury objects in ancien régime cultural position of, importance of understanding, 6 nostalgic revival by scholars, 171 outlasting of ​Revolution by, 39 as signifier of distinction among elite, 6 as souvenirs of past after Revolution, 39 as symbol of royal magnificence, 6 Lyon destruction after Siege, 96 Siege of, 95–96 silk industry in, and political violence, 95 Madame Sans Culotte (anon.), 93, 94 Mantel, Hilary, 92–93 Manufacture républicain wallpaper company (Dugourc and Anisson-​Dupéron), 97–99 arabesque designs by Dugourc, 99 and Dugourc’s freedom to design, 99 Dugourc’s reuse of monarchy-​era patterns, 99 Dugourc’s turn from, 99, 100, 182n89 journée of August 10th and, 99 and parallels of wallpaper and paper money, 99 manufacturers of ​luxury industry, and irreplaceable royal patronage, 33–34 Marat, Jean-​Paul display of ​heart, 61 makeshift monument to, at desecrated royal tombs, 146 on Sèvres manufactory, cost of, 139 Maria Leszczynska (grand duchess of ​Russia), 77 Marie-​Antoinette (queen of ​France) burial in mass grave, 25, 63–64 criticism for spending on luxury items, 73, 78 donations toward national debt relief, 41–42 execution of, 4 gambling by, 71 as half-​human female monster, 90, 91 needlepoint begun at Palais des Tuileries, 22, plate 4

purchases from Paris luxury market, 78 revolutionaries’ attempt to dehumanize, 24–25 wager on completion of ​Bagatelle, 75 Marie-​Antoinette Sacrifices the Heart of the Nobility on the Altar of the French Republic (Haly), 61, 62, 179n96 market in secondhand luxury goods after revolution as brisk, 8–9 fierce competition in, 11 mix of confiscated and looted items in, 35 stimulation by Versailles auctions, 34–35 transfer of aesthetic authority to, 19, 172 Massard, Jean Baptiste Félix, 53, 53–54 Massard, Jean Baptiste Louis, 53, 53–54 Matière à reflection pour les jongleurs couronnées: qu’un sang impur abreuve nos sillons (Villeneuve), 1, 2 Menus-​Plaisirs Pâris at, 13 responsibility for royal funerals, 23 Mercier, Louis Sébastien, 35, 74 Mertrud, Jean-​Claude, 148 Mesmer, Franz, 123 Metaphysics of ​Morals (Kant), 26–27 Metropolitan Museum of Art, Cabris Room, 4, plate 1 Michel, Régis, 2–3 mineralogy, in 18th century, 148 Mirabeau, Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, comte de and Armoire de Fer scandal, 58 Deseine bust of, 7 Mississippi Bubble, 56 Moitte, Jean-​Guillaume background of, 49 Beckford’s admiration for work of, 52 as designer for Auguste, 49–51 design for Auguste’s “Beckford-​Béhague” ewer, 44–45, 50, 51 design for ewer with Grecian mask (ca. 1790), 50, 51 design of arch for Fête de la Fédération (1790), 53, 53–54 design of pair of candelabra for Duke of ​York, 52, 52 designs, characteristics of, 49, 50, 51 designs for revolutionary monuments and festivals, 52–54 health problems of, 49, 50 Hommage à la deuxième legislature, 41, 42, 53, 54 Odiot’s purchase of designs by, 49, 70, 178n38 post-​revolution, distancing from Auguste, 59

style of, 49, 50 money anxieties in Republic, 12 See also assignats monuments, vandalism of, 9 Morris, Gouverneur advice to Washington on American taste, 36, 152 covert sale of d’Angiviller’s silver, 36 and Dihl et Guérhard porcelain, 152 French furniture brought home by, 37 as lover of ​luxury, 36–37 purchases at Versailles auctions, 4 purchases for Washington, 152, 153 as royal sympathizer, 36 Mosson, Joseph Bonnier de la, 138 Moustier, comte de, 152 Moyen expeditif du peuple français pour démeubler un aristocrate: 13 novembre 1790 (anon.), 4–6, 5, 7 Moyens de faciliter l’échange des assignats proposés au Comité des monnoies (Auguste), 55 Murat, Laure, 109 Musée Carnavalet, Au temps des merveilleuses (2005 exhibition), 7 museum collections and ideological belonging, 4 as shaped by agonistic politics of past and present, 4 Muséum d’Histoire naturelle, Cuvier at, 148–49 National Assembly, issuing of assignats, 42 National Convention appointment of committee to oversee Versailles auctions, 30 decree authorizing auctions, 28, 30 outlawing of royal and feudal signs on playing cards, 71–72 100 nature as source of natural regeneration and Earth nourished with blood of ​Louis XVI, 145 and festivals of nature, 146 and legitimization of ​Terror through analogies with nature, 144 new calendar and, 143 Necker, Jacques and paper currency introduction, 55 stockings with design expressing support for, 94, 95 neoclassical style encompassing of personal and perverse in, 64 funereal motifs in, 64

Index

215

neoclassical style (continued) popularity through Napoleonic era, 59 wood sculpture in, provincial nobility’s interest in, 114 neo-​Pietist faith in Swiss-​German regions, Lavater and, 130 Niderviller faience and porcelain manufactory, 152 Nitot, Marie-​Étienne, 65 Nodier, Charles, 142 Nouvelles Cartes de la République Française (Dugourc and Jaume), 12, 99–102, plate 10 described, 99, 101–2 Equality of ​Diamonds card, 101–2, plate 13 fleur-​de-​lis paper stock used for some decks, 102 introduction of, 71 manufacture of, 99–100 patenting of, 73, 77, 99, 101 Dugourc’s memory of father’s lawsuits and, 101 and persistence of ancien régime culture, 101 as piquet deck, 100 prospectus describing figures on, 101 replacements for kings and queens in, 71–72, 101–2 semiotic mesh of, 101 variations across sets, 100–101 Odiot, Jean-​Baptiste-​Claude and Empire revival of ​luxury items, 65 as goldsmith, 49 Lefèvre portrait of, 60, 70, plate 7 purchase of ​Moitte designs, 49, 70, 178n38 “Orfèvre Grossier” (Lucotte), 46, 47 Orléans, duc d’. See Philippe [I], duc d’Orléans ornamental design in Revolution, and anxiety of influence, 73 Paillet, Alexandre-​Joseph, and auction of Aumont’s collection, 30 painting collection of ​Louis XVI, transfer to Louvre, 30 Pajou, Augustin, 49 palaces, furnishings of, and royal representation, 20 Palais des Tuileries King’s secret compartment in, 58 poor condition of, 20 removal of royal family to, 20 royal family at furnishings brought from Versailles, 21, 22 King’s quarters, 20

216

Index



and luxury, personal rather than representative meaning of, 21–22 needlepoint work by Marie-​Antoinette and Madame Élisabeth, 22, plate 4 refurbishment during, 20, 21 use of wallpaper rather than more luxurious wall coverings, 21 and royal representation, 20 storming of ​(August 10, 1792), 22, 91 Palais-​Royal, Dugourc’s childhood at, 76 Pantheon, secularization of, 109 paper in Revolution determination of people’s lives by, 73, 74 minimal difference between official and informal paperwork, 99 paperwork, psychic life of, 74 Paracelsus, and physiognomy, 130 Parent, Aubert-​Henri-​Joseph allegorical nature of work, before and after revolution, 118, 120–21 allegorical relief panels (1789, 1791), 118, 119 Allégorie de l’amour de Louis XVI pour ses sujets, 113–14, 193n16, plate 17 and Angiviller, funding from, 114, 115 as architect, 13 background and career, 113–14 carved relief with allegory of the constitution (1791), 118–19, 119, 120–21 carving method of, and Lavater’s physiognomy theories, 131 and Catherine the Great, efforts to sell works to, 114 compositional style of, 116 dead birds in work of, 118, 119, 121 defects of style, as less evident in carvings, 117 design for monument to mother of ​Princess Juliane Schaumburg-​Lippe, 128, 129 design of garden at Württembergerhof, 122 drawing of vase on classical pedestal, 115–16, plate 18 early anatomical studies, poor quality of, 115–16, 116 Esquisse pour un projet de monument d’après l’idée de monsieur le ministre Lavater, 129 exile in Switzerland and Germany, 109–10 appointment as architect-​in-​chief of canton of Solothurn, 122 archaeological excavation in Augst, 122 and changed subject matter of work, 119 commissions, 122

continued carving in wood, 123 departure with first wave of immigrants, 122 and freedom from academies’ influence, 122 and Lavater, friendship with, 123, 124–25 successful career as architect, 128 floral still-​life relief ​(1784), 121–22, plate 19 funerary projects with Lavater, 126–28 funerary vases, images of ​(Cahier de Vases), 117, 117 and grieving for Louis XVI, 13–15 and king’s image as symbol of ​loss, 14–15 lack of formal training, 115, 117 Lavater’s influence on, 130–31 and Lavater’s physiognomy, influence on sculptural work, 125 Lavater’s promotion of, to female patrons, 126 limewood carvings of, and German Pietism, 130–31 marking of place and time of works, 122 move to Paris, 114 post-​revolution transformation of practice, 109–10, 118, 121 prints of furnishings, 116–17 and Revolution, departure for France, 13 royalist affinities of, 117–18 and Salon de la Correspondance, works displayed at, 114, 125 second trip to Rome, 116 strong identification with monarchical regime, 13 as student at Royal Academy of painting and sculpture departure from, to visit Italy, 115 inadequate attention to studies, 114, 115 study of nude seen from behind (1783), 115, 116 visit to Italy as enough to establish credentials as archaeologist, 123 failure to find patron, 115 as flight from Royal Academy education, 115 and wood as medium, 121 See also carved medallion depicting Louis XVI (Parent) Paris in Directory period atmosphere of experimentation in, 150–51 political uncertainty and unrest in, 159 and precarity of ​luxury item production, 159 renewed desire for durability of cultural objects, 154

real estate boom, 1763-1798, 74 Pâris, Pierre-​Adrien and auction of Aumont’s collection, 30 career in Royal administration, 13 planned monument to Louis XVI, 13, 109, 110 plan of a former dovecote transformed into a residence, 13, 14, 103 and Revolution, self-​imposed exile following, 13, 109 Paris Commune (1871), luxury goods as communal in, 9 Paris Salon of 1798, 59 patrons as arbiters of taste, ending of, with Revolution, 19, 172 Paul, Grand Duke, 79 Pauquet, Jean Louis Charles, 42 Percier, Charles, 50, 79, 156, 161, 172 Percival, Melissa, 128 Pernon, Camille Dugourc and, 80–81, plate 14 Saint-​Aubin and, 77 silk commissions during Revolution, 95 Pétion, Alexandre, 54 Pfeiffer, François-​Antoine, plate 22 Philippe [I], duc d’Orléans, 76 physiognomic portrait, parallels to guillotine, 129 physiognomy and consolation for mourners, 128 Pietism and, 130 religious traditions underlying, 130 See also Lavater, Johann Caspar physionotrace device, 129 Picard, Joseph Gaspard, 92 Pigalle, Jean-​Baptiste, 49 Pillement, Jean, 32 Pinel, Philippe on execution of ​Louis XVI, 108–9 as founder of ​French psychiatry, 109 Piranesi, Giovanni Battista, 75 Pius VII, tiara made for, 65 Place de la Révolution, removal of statue of ​Louis XV, 11 Plan of a former dovecote transformed into a residence (Pâris), 13, 14, 103 playing cards National Convention’s outlawing of royal and feudal signs on, 71–72, 100

Index

217

playing cards (continued) post-​revolution, local use in lieu of money, 100, 100 republican, and new freedom of unregulated artists, 73 republican, introduction of, 71–72 as subject for artists before Revolution, 100 taxes on, in monarchy, 102 See also Nouvelles Cartes de la République Française (Dugourc and Jaume) Plinval de Guillebon, Régine de, 153 The Politics of Appearances (Wrigley), 3 Pompadour, Madame de Saint-Aubin and, 77 and Sèvres porcelain manufactory, 137–38 porcelains as embodiment of revolutionary changes in discourse on the Earth, 137 importance as diplomatic gifts, 139, 159 in postrevolutionary period, as medium of national interest, 152 tensions between regeneration and extinction, 15 See also Sèvres porcelain portraiture, and picturing of modern self, 154 Poussin, Nicolas, 28 Préaud, Tamara, 136 precious metals glut of, from Spain’s New World colonies, 48 purity standards, abolishment by revolutionary government, 57 Premier frise de l’arc de triomphe elevé au, Champ de Mars (Massard and Massard), 53, 53–54 Président d’un comité révolutionnaire, après la levée d’un scelé (anon.), 35 print ephemera, post-​revolution, focus on education of citizens, 72 prison, Robert’s painting of plates in, 96 Protestant Reformation, French Revolution as consequence of, 130 Quatremère de Quincy, Antoine Chrysostôme on arabesque decorations, 87, 89, 91 and Pantheon, secularization of, 109 Quéverdo, François-​Marie-​Isidore, 85 Raphael, and Vatican Loggia, 89 Recueil d’arabesques, contenant les loges du Vatican . . . (Joubert), 85–86

218

Index

Régnier, Antoine, 140 Reichardt, Rolf, 3 reliquaries, typical uses of, 62 See also heart reliquary of Madeleine-​Julie Coustou (Auguste) Rémond, François, 78 Rémy, Pierre, 30 Renouvier, Jules, 72 Restout, Jean-​Bernard, 92 revolutionary culture, as part of modern cultural inheritance, 171 revolutionary politics of regeneration, ephemeral materials of, 1–2 Révolutions de France et de Brabant, 4–6, 5 Richardson, Emily, 140 Riemenschneider, Tilman, 112, 112 Riesener, Jean-​Henri drop-​front secretary made by, 33, 34 purchases at Versailles auctions, 31–32, 33, 177n77 royal furniture made by, 21 Rigaud, André, training as goldsmith, 54 Riqueti, Honoré Gabriel, comte de Mirabeau and Armoire de Fer scandal, 58 Deseine bust of, 7 Robert, Hubert, 3, 96 Robespierre, Maximilien Boilly portrait of, 8, plate 2 and death of ​Louis XVI, 71 and Fête de l’Être Suprême, 141–42 guillotining of, 142 and luxury items of food and dress, 8, plate 2 on political effects of ​Louis XVI’s death, 145–46 suicide attempt before arrest, 34 Robespierre guillotinant le boureau après avoir fait guillot. r tous les Français (Hercy), 108 Rohan, Cardinal de, 81–83 Le roi, piochant au Champ de Mars (anon.), 145 Roland, Jean-​Marie, 58 Rome, ancient, auctions in, 28–29 Royal Academy of painting and sculpture, Parent as student at, 114, 115 royal collection Commission des monuments’ selection of items from, 31 dispersal of, 1 melting of metal objects for use in currency, 31 revolutionaries’ trading of items from, 31

royal agencies responsible for inventories of, 32 See also dispersal of collections in Revolution; Garde-​Meuble de la Couronne royal family attempted flight and capture at Varennes, 22, 120–21, 139 donation of silver and gold toward national debt, 41 imprisoned in Temple, 22, 24, 27, 71 removal from Versailles to Palais des Tuileries, 20 See also Palais des Tuileries Royalists characteristic beliefs of, 131 depictions of dead royal family in art, as phantoms or silhouettes, 15, 25, 25, 27, 109, 131–32, 173, plate 30 distinctive aesthetic of, 131 and execution of ​Louis XVI, desire for revenge for, 27 mourning of ​Louis XVI, 15 private devotional objects for mourning, 15 and royal collections as fetishized relics, 10, 27 and White Terror, 159 royal manufactories, post-​revolution continuation of royal commissions, 20–21, 176n14 royal power, decay before Revolution, and emptiness at heart of symbolic order, 11 royal tombs at Saint-​Denis burial of ​Louis XIV, 146 and funeral procession for Louis XVI and queen, 26, 27 lack of grand Bourbon funeral monument at, 24 revolutionaries’ disinterment of ​bodies at, 146, 163 Rudwick, Martin, 148, 167 Saint-​Aubert, Antoine-​François, 113 Saint-​Aubin, Augustin de, 55, 55 Saint-​Aubin, Charles-​Germain de career of, 77 training of ​Dugourc, 77–78, 85 Saint-​Aubin, Gabriel de, 29 Saint-​Gobain royal glass works, and use of ​luxury goods to consolidate authority, 6 Saint-​Hilaire, Etienne Geoffroy, 148 Saint-​Just, Louis Antoine de, 71 Salmon, Xavier, 60 Salon de la Correspondance, Parent’s works displayed at, 114, 125 Sanson, Charles-​Henri, 22–23, 107 Saule, Béatrix, 48

Saule pleureur (anon.), 25, 25 Saunier, Charles, 60, 68 Sauvage, Piat-​Joseph, 154 Savonnerie carpet manufactory revolutionaries’ criticisms of, 140 and use of ​luxury goods to consolidate authority, 6 Savournin, Joseph, 91–92 Schaumburg-​Lippe, Princess Juliane, Parent and Lavater’s design for monument to mother of, 128, 129 Schechter, Ronald, 150 scholarship on arts in French Revolution, 2–3 on dispersal of collections in Revolution, 9 on dispossession, 10 on goût étrusque, 72 on guillotine, 15 limited work on fate of ​luxury industry and works, 2, 4, 7 on Sèvres porcelain manufactory in revolutionary period, 137 Schwerdfeger, Ferdinand furniture by, sold in Versailles auctions, 32 See also jewelry cabinet (serre-​bijoux) of Marie-​ Antoinette (Schwerdfeger and Dugourc) Scott, Katie, 11, 73 Scurr, Ruth, 8 seated bishop (Riemenschneider), 112, 112 September Massacres assassination of ​Thierry de Ville-​d’Avray, 92 and banishment of émigrés, 122 Dugourc and, 96 and large number of ​bodies to be buried, 162–63 and official end of monarchy, 92 and radicalization of government, 22 Sèvres porcelain annual sale at Versailles of, 137 banning from Louvre Museum, 7 characteristic designs of, 138 dispossessed, sale in England, 135 items sold at Versailles auctions, 37–39, 38 King’s request for, at Palais des Tuileries, 22 Le Brun’s selection for Louvre, 31 See also Louis XVI dinner service (1983-93) Sèvres porcelain manufactory colors available to, 154–55, plate 26 superiority of ​Dihl’s colorfast enamels, 155–56, plate 27, plate 28

Index

219

Sèvres porcelain manufactory (continued) competition for elite clientele, 159 Louis XV’s purchase of, 137–38 and luxury goods as symbol of distinction, 6 Napoleon’s decision to support, 160 revolutionaries’ criticisms of, 139–40 soft-​paste porcelains as best known, 138 specialization of workers at, 138 Sèvres porcelain manufactory, in revolutionary period Brongniart’s as director appointment as, 15, 160 long tenure as, 136 Lucien Bonaparte’s preference for chemist and, 160 and modernization of factory, 136 clean slate policy as echo of new Consulate government, 160–61 competition from other manufacturers, 152 and debts left by émigrés, 140 déjeuner (tea set) depicting republican themes, 140–42, plate 21 designs designs based on classical antiquity, 161, 163 faux stone designs, 161, 162, 163 new styles sought by, 161 use of outside designers, 161 different items produced, 37, 38 and digging for raw materials, 150, 162 early financial problems, 160, 161 Napoleon’s rise to power and, 160 near-​extinction of, 136 and new aesthetic of work, 136 obstacles faced by, 160 order to destroy all molds and models representing royalty and denounced persons, 140 plate with cameo portrait of ​Moschion, 161, 163 production for export market, 184n21 and recovery from near extinction, 136 reduced production, 140 Régnier’s time as head of, 140 republican-​themed decorations adopted by, 137, 140–43, 141, plate 21, plate 22 revolutionary government takeover of, 140 revolutionary ideas of regeneration and, 136 scholarship on, 137 selloff of old stock, 136, 160 services and table displays for imperial court, 172

220

Index

and soft-​paste porcelain, ending production of, 136, 160 and state support under Napoleon, 136 success of, 162 sundial (1794–95), 142–43, plate 22 and transformation of factory into research and learning center, 15, 136 worker unrest and absenteeism, 140 Shaw, Matthew, 143 Shovlin, John, 6, 78 Siegfried, Susan, 3 silk assignats, Jolivet’s proposal for, 94–95, 95 silk designs by Dugourc, 79, 80–81 silk fabric with Dianas (ca. 1792), 91–92, 92 as among last commissions of Garde-​Meuble, 91–92 as completed but unused, 92 design of, 91–92, 92 Dugourc’s work on design for, 92 silk industry, economic collapse after Revolution, 7 silk industry in Lyon Napoleon’s revival of, 172 and political violence, 95 silk stockings with “Necker” pattern, 94, 95 silver luxury objects marks (poinçons) on, significance of, 46–47 purity standards for, 47 taxes on, 47 typical types of, 48 Simonides of ​Keos, 63 Sleeping Leopard (Stubbs), 154, 155 Smith, Adam, 6 Société philomathique, 148 soft-​paste porcelain characteristics vs. hard-​paste, 138 kaolin and, 138 as Sèvres’s best-​known product, 138 Sèvres’s ending production of, 136, 160 Sprang, Rebecca, 55, 56 squiggle game therapy, 89, 90 Stammers, Tom, 9, 18, 19, 37 string play, in Winnicott’s therapy for traumatized children, 89 Stubbs, George, 154, 155 Sturm and Drang movement, Lavater and, 130 survival of ​luxury items cultural position of ​luxury in ancien régime and, 6 as puzzle, 4

Swebach-​Desfontaines, François Louis, Histoire naturelle, 148, plate 23 Swebach-​Desfontaines, Jacques-​François, 152 Swiss Confederation, French defeat and seizure of, 122, 131 Switzerland counterrevolutionary thought in, as mix of religious piety and political conservatism, 131 Directory government in, Lavater as critic of, 131 as émigrés destination, 122 Tackett, Timothy, 7 Talleyrand-​Périgord, Charles-​Maurice de, 159 Taws, Richard, 3, 9, 43, 72 te Rijdt, R. J. te, 105–6 Terror brisk market in second-​hand luxury goods during, 8–9 guillotine as exemplary instrument of, 107 invention of tricoteuse (knitters) of revo to disavow, 93–94 legitimization of, through analogies with nature, 144 theft of ​luxury items by city officials, 35, 35 and resale at auctions, 35 Thermidorian Reaction, 93, 126, 159 Thierry de Ville-​d’Avray, Marc-​Antoine arrest of, 91 assassination in prison, 92, 96 as head of Garde-​Meuble, 78 time, revolutionary transformation of, 143 Les tombeaux, ou Essai sur les sépultures (Giraud), 164–66 comparison of funeral practices across cultures, 164 on glass pillars made from cremated remains, 165–66 on medallions made from cremated remains, 164 proposal for vast crematorium/cemetery/memorial, 165, 165–66 Travaux du Champ de Mars pour la Confédération du 14 juillet 1790 (anon.), 144, 144 travel outside one’s district, passport required for, 146 Treuttel and Würtz (booksellers), 32 tricoteuse (knitters) of ​Revolution, 93–94 turquerie, 87 unionization, Le Chapelier law forbidding (1791), 54 universal equality, as goal of ​Revolution, 19

Valois Saint Rémy, Jeanne de (comtesse de la Motte), 81–83 value of objects after Revolution courts’ role in judging, 11 as matter of personal taste, 8–9, 16, 39 misvaluing of objects in Versailles auctions, 32 radical fluctuation of, 31 relation to view of past, 9 transfer of aesthetic authority to market, 19, 172 unclear standards for, 10 Vandé, P.-J.-B., plate 21 van Spaendonck, Gérard, 120 Vathek (Beckford), 64 Vatican Loggia, and arabesque decoration, 85, 89 Vergennes, comte de, 21 Verlet, Pierre, 18–19 Vernet, Joseph, 156 Versailles auctions (1793–94) advertisement for, 17, 18 artisans’ purchase of their work at, 33 assignats as currency of, 17, 33 atmosphere at, 17 auctioning of objects from, and dispersal as state violence, 7–8 breakup of sets of items, 38 bureaucrats’ valuation of objects in, 30–31 committee overseeing, 30 cultural effect of, as under-​studied, 39 cut-​rate deals at, 34 elimination of traces of monarchy as goal of, 17–19, 28 and funds needed for military campaigns, 10, 28, 30, 33 furniture exported following, 32–33 as generative source of collective memories, 19 inventory process prior to categories for sorting of items, 30 separation of items to sell or keep, 30–31 at lodging of ​Princesse de Lamballe, 17 lots, mixed items in, 32 market-​driven chaos of, 32 misvaluation of objects in, 32 Morris purchase at, 4 and nostalgia for lost luxury, 37–39 number of ​lots, 17 objects sold power of ​king’s body displaced onto, 19

Index

221

Versailles auctions (continued) objects sold (continued) as stubborn material reminders of ​king, 19–20 types of, 17 unstable meaning of, 39 officials conducting, 32 participants in, 32 and private property, conversion of feudal assets to, 28 proceeds from, 17 records of, 31–32 as redistributive justice, 19 royal family’s removal from, 20 and secondhand goods market, stimulation of, 34–35 sessions, number of ​lots sold in, 32 shaping of collective memory of ​Louis XVI by, 19 as spectacle of ​loss, 19, 33 as tragic cultural loss, 18 unsold objects sale overseas, 33 use to pay state debts in lieu of cash, 33 Viljoen, Madeleine, 67 virtue, masculine notion in Revolution, and collective myths of the feminine (maternal economy), 73–74 Vivant-​Denon, Dominique, 64–65, 169 Volpato, Giovanni, 85 voudou, and colonialism, 69–70

222

Index

Wahnich, Sophie, 25 Walczak, Gerrit, 10, 13, 122 Wall, Cynthia, 29 wallpaper designers, after Revolution, 98 See also Manufacture républicain wallpaper company (Dugourc and Anisson-​Dupéron) Walzer, Michael, 23 Washington, George and Morris’s advice on taste, 36, 152 Morris’s purchase of porcelain for, 152, 153 Wedgwood popularity in Paris during Revolution, 154 Stubbs’ Sleeping Leopard on, 154, 155 White Terror of royalists, 159 Wille, Johann Georg, 36 William, Nicholas, 67 Winckelmann, Johann J., 76, 77 Winnicott, D. W., therapy for traumatized children, 89, 90 Wrigley, Richard, 3 Württemberg, Carl Eugene, Duke of, 126 Württemberg, Ludwig Eugene, Duke of, 126 York, Frederick, Duke of, pair of candelabra by Auguste made for, 52, 52