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Title:
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Tomb of Eliza Roy, Comtesse de Lariboisière
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Artist: |
Baron Carlo Marochetti
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Eliza Roy, Comtesse de Lariboisière died in 1851. Her husband, Charles-Honoré Baston, Comte de Lariboisière had been a soldier in Napoleon's army, and was the son of a still more famous general in the service of the Empire. During the Bourbon Restoration the Count was elected deputy for Fougères. Towards 1830 he joined the opposition, and following the July Revolution espoused the ideals of the July Monarchy. However, in 1849 he rallied to the cause of the Prince President, the future Napoleon III, and at the start of the Second Empire was appointed a Senator. His wife, Eliza was a wealthy woman in her own right. Her father, Antoine Comte Roy, a shrewd and calculating lawyer turned politician and financier, inherited a large part of the estates of the Duc de Bouillon, and under Charles X served as Minister of Finance. At his death he left something in the region of forty million francs. His daughter, before she died, made a bequest of approximately three million towards the establishment of the Hospital, which thenceforth bore her name. The building had been commenced in 1846, to designs by the architect Martin-Pierre Gauthier, but it was not completed until 1854. Behind a screen and gateway fronting the rue Ambroise Paré, a courtyard extends northwards, flanked by rectangular pavilions, and dominated at its northern end by the chapel, which contains the tomb of the benefactress.
On the 28th Oct. 1853, Marochetti informed his English patron, William John Bankes, that he had to make "an important monument for the Lariboisière hospice in Paris....intended to recall the magnificent bequest made by Madame de Lariboisière". Her husband had requested a rendez-vous in Paris with him for the end of October or the start of November. He had sent a drawing to the Count in the previous week, but still had not received any reply. This he complained was typical of the present times. However, in a subsequent letter to Bankes (1 Nov. 1853), Marochetti admitted that working in England on such a monument for Paris possessed certain pecuniary advantages.
The architect appointed to design the structure of the tomb and to oversee its erection, was, as we learn from a later article in Le Monde Illustré (21 Feb. 1863), , Auguste Pellechet (1789-1874). In a letter of 11 Jan. 1857, Pellechet's son, Jules, also an architect, wrote to his father from Rome, "so finally that monument in the Chapel of the Lariboisière Hospital is completed. I only hope you are pleased with the result, and the sculpture, will that soon be in place?" (Jules Pellechet, Lettres d'Italie 1856-1857, Paris, 1894, p.73)
By June of the same year it was. There is a report in the Gazette de France of the 7 June announcing that Marochetti had finished it and that it was all in place, Usefully, this paper gives an account of the iconography of the tomb, which definitely has the ring of accuracy about it, so that it may be apposite to translate the entire passage:
"This huge and imposing composition, all in marble, comprises seven figures. The sarcophagus in black marble serves as a support to a most remarkable group, both in terms of its execution and the expression of the heads of the figures. A kneeling angel holds in his arms, on one side, a man who breathes his last, and on the other, a standing child who seeks in the proximity of the heavenly envoy, a refuge from the maladies which devour him. This is a personification of the genius of good works and consolation.
To the right of this tableau and of these groups is seated a young mother with her newborn child. In her hand she holds the bowl in which she has been given the food which will restore her strength. To the left is an old man, half-wrapped in his cloak, and appearing to rest from his long fatigues, thanks to the repose and shelter which have been provided for his last days. The top of the monument, formed from a double arc, again in black marble, and broken in the middle, presents the bust of the benefactress of the hospice. Two angels in bronze are placed to either side. One appears to point out the noble deceased to those on earth, the other to indicate that she has already received in heaven the reward for her good actions. The look of this monument is most remarkable. What makes it especially strange is that the artist has had the idea of colouring all his statues in the lower part. This is an innovation which critics will no doubt debate, but which produces a very great and dramatic effect in the half-light of the hospice chapel."
The author of the 1863 article in Le Monde Illustré (21 Feb. 1863) was to regret that the chapels of hospitals were not on the whole accessible to the general public, thus depriving it of the sight of "one of the most beautiful monuments of Marochetti ". Describing the sculptor as "ungrateful", the author claimed that France had done sufficiently well by him during the period of his residence in the country for him now to renounce his exile, and return to produce pendents to the fine works by him which were already there. The author's comments on the individual sculptures comprising the tomb are not especially revealing. The central group, to which he gives the title Pietà, he thought "remarkable" and "highly attractive". The child and the old man, "their members attenuated by suffering" were treated with anatomical understanding ("science"). The figures flanking the structure with their simple and grandly treated draperies, the journalist thought worked best in silhouette. The bust of the Countess was conceived in a monumental manner. This reviewer approved the fact that Marochetti had tinted his marbles, writing, "the tendency to have marbles of several tones is an innovation, or rather a revival, that we would like to see more of. The divine Pompeii is full of these applications, which correct the chaste nudity of marbles, and contribute a great charm to statuary".
This was not a view shared by the Italian sculptor Giovanni Duprè, who wrote specifically about the Lariboisière tomb in his memoirs:
"I remember to have seen an imposing monument composed of several figures that had been put up in honour of Madame de la Riboisière in the chapel belonging to the hospital which bears that name in Paris. It is completely coloured - I should better say painted all over - with body colour, - the heads, hair, eyes, draperies, all coloured so that it is impossible to distinguish the material in which it is sculptured. You could distinguish absolutely nothing; and if it had not been for the custode, who affirmed that the work was in marble, you might have thought it was coloured plaster or terra cotta. And this worthy man was so sure of having thus added beauty to his statues that he was much astonished that others did not imitate him. Marochetti, there is no doubt, was wrong in loading on colour as he did." (G.Dupre, Thoughts on Art and Autobiographical Memoirs, Edinburgh and London, 1884, pp.284-285)
Seemingly nothing remains of the colour today, though the marbles of the tomb are very dirty. Something which appears also to have gone is a halo, which the wood-engraving in Le Monde Illustré (21 Feb. 1863) clearly shows hovering over the head of the chief figure in the group referred to by the magazine as a Pietà. This group, identified in the Gazette de France (7 June 1857) as the Genius of Good Works and Consolation, seems to conform more closely to the imagery of Charity, and more specifically to be a reminiscence of the type known as a Roman Charity, in which a young woman feeds an old man from her breast. Here there is no breast-feeding, and the old man is accompanied by a boy, but it would seem likely that Marochetti was harking back to such images.
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Material(s): |
Bronze and Marble
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Medium: |
Unassigned |
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Finish: |
- |
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Technique: |
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Genre: |
Funerary Monument
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Location: |
Hôpital Lariboisière, Paris, , ,
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Colours: |
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Year: |
1861 |
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Height: |
0 metres |
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Width: |
0 metres |
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Depth: |
0 metres |
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Key: |
2725 |
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Acc. No.: |
2725 |
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Col. No.: |
2725 |
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Number of views: |
4905 |
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