Lot n° 193
Estimation :
20000 - 30000
EUR
Result with fees
Result
: 23 680EUR
Jean-Michel MOREAU, known as MOREAU le Jeune... - Lot 193 - Ader
Jean-Michel MOREAU, known as MOREAU le Jeune (Paris, 1741 - Provins, 1814)
Benjamin Franklin welcoming Mirabeau to the Champs-Élysées, 1791
Pen and India ink, brown ink wash.
Signed and dated lower left: "J.M. moreau Le Jne 1791".
Inscribed on the reverse: "Engraving taken in 1888 in portfolio 140".
22,6 x 33,2 cm
Provenance :
Former collection of Mr. Potrelle, print dealer; his sale, Paris, March 20, 1805, no. 65.
Bibliography :
- M.-J.-F. Mahérault, L'Œuvre de Moreau le Jeune, Paris, 1880, p. 496, no. 548.
- E. Bocher, Les Gravures françaises du XVIIIe siècle, Jean-Michel Moreau le Jeune, Paris, 1882, fasc. VI, p. 705.
After having been a zealous servant of the king, Moreau le Jeune was a fervent supporter of the Revolution. He was a member of the revolutionary commissions with David and published in engravings all the great events of the Republic. A "writer", as the Goncourts called him, Moreau loved allegory. The philosophers Rousseau and Voltaire had his first taste in the 1780s. Using the allegorical principle of L'Arrivée de Jean-Jacques Rousseau aux Champs-Elysées (1780, Jean Bonna collection), Moreau reminds us of Mirabeau's illustrious predecessors. The engraving by Masquelier (1792) is described in the margin as follows: "Mirabeau arrives at the Champs-Elisées. On his head hovers the Genius of Liberty carrying a banner with this inscription: La France libre. He advances towards J.J. Rousseau and presents him one of his works. Franklin puts a crown of oak on his head. Montesquieu, Voltaire, Mably and Fénelon come to receive him. On the second plan, Demosthenes and Cicero enter the French orator and contemplate him. Geniuses follow him in charge of his works". As Bocher points out (op. cit., no. 271, p. 108), the inscriptions on the successive states follow one another and are not alike. The paper that Mirabeau holds in his hand, where one reads in the 2nd state "Essai sur le Despotisme" becomes "Charte Constitutionnelle" in the 8th state. The Essay on Despotism was published by Mirabeau in 1776, after his escape with a married mistress, Sophie de Monnier, and his death sentence in absentia. Mirabeau's death on April 2, 1791 greatly affected the Revolutionaries, who were not yet aware of his double-dealing with the king, revealed by the discovery of the iron cabinet in November 1792. On April 4, the church of Sainte-Geneviève was transformed into the Pantheon by decree of the National Assembly. On April 5, Mirabeau was buried there with great pomp, the first of the great men to be laid to rest. It is to this ceremony and its significance that Moreau le Jeune refers (see: Catalogue d'exposition, La Révolution française et l'Europe, Paris, Éditions RMN, 1989, second part, n° 761). In 1794, his remains were removed and replaced by those of Marat.
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