Her dwelling is in the Via delle Fornace, where are also the studios of Powers and Fedi. A dark green door opens into a paved covered court, formerly the entrance to a convent, which is now adapted to form a modern habitation. On one side a flight of stairs leads to the upper rooms, another door leads to the studio; a third opens on a cool, quiet garden, shaded by trees. There are dovecotes, pigeon-houses, and bird-cages; and the walks are hedged with laurels and cypresses, while there are gay flowers mingled with Etruscan vases and jars. The artist’s drawing-room looks like the parlor of an abbess, furnished with antique hangings, carved chairs, silver crucifixes, and gold-grounded, pre-Raphaelite pictures, some of great beauty and value. From this drawing-room, half oratory and half boudoir, the visitor descends to the studio, which is composed of two or three large white-washed rooms on the ground floor.
The first thing that strikes one here is the evidence of the artist’s indefatigable industry. Here are casts and bassi-relievi from the antique, but no goddesses, nymphs, or cupids; it is Christian art of the mediæval period. Saints and angels cover the walls; in the centre is a large crucifix of carved wood, beautifully executed, and full of vigor and expression; near it is a Santa Reparata, designed in terra-cotta. Mademoiselle de Fauveau has been peculiarly successful in her adaptation of terra-cotta to artistic purposes. A large alto-relievo represents two freed spirits flying heavenward, dropping their earthly chains. A lovely St. Dorothea looks upward, and holds up her hands for a basket of flowers and fruit which a descending angel is bringing from Paradise. Bold and rapid movement is expressed in the flying figure. In the background is an architectural design of a church, and an inscription describing how it sprang, as it were, from the martyr’s blood. There is a Judith addressing the Israelites from an open gallery, with the head of Holofernes on a spear beside her. In the aspect of the resolute woman of Bethulia there is an undefinable resemblance to the artist. The expression, indeed, is congenial to her character, in which there is the concentration of purpose which gives force, and the ardor that gives decision to the will.
There are also works of a lighter character; the carved frame-work of a mirror, with an exquisite allegorical design—a fop and a coquette, in elaborate costume, are bending inward toward the glass, so intent on self-admiration as to be unconscious that a demon below has caught their feet in a line or snare from which they will not be able to extricate themselves without falling. Most of Mademoiselle de Fauveau’s works have superabundant richness of ornament and allegorical device. Her designs for gold and silver ornaments are unrivaled for elegance and imaginative picturesqueness.
She made for Count Zichy a Hungarian costume, the collar, belt, sword, and spurs being of the most finished workmanship. A silver bell, ornamented with twenty figures, for the Empress of Russia, represents a mediæval household, in the costumes of the period, and their peculiar avocations, assembling at the call of three stewards, whose figures form the handle. Round the ball is blazoned, in Gothic characters, “De bon vouloir servir le maître.”
It would be tedious to enumerate the works of this indefatigable artist. The finished specimens of twenty-five years of labor are shut up in private galleries, the models remaining in her studio. Her last and most imposing work is the monument in Santa Croce, erected to the memory of Louise Favreau by her parents. Madame de Krafft published a description of this in the Revue Britannique for March, 1857. Three monuments, in different styles, may be seen in the Lindsay chapel. In her studio are several busts of great beauty, strongly relieved by her method of placing an architectural back-ground. One is the bust of the Marquis de Bretignières, the founder of the reformatory school colony of Mettray.
Besides devoting herself to the actual expression of her ideas, Madame de Fauveau has, all her life, studied to improve the mere mechanical portion of her art. She endeavored to revive certain secrets known to the ancients, which have been abandoned and forgotten, to the detriment of modern sculpture. To cast a statue entire, instead of in portions, and with so much precision as to require no farther touch of the chisel—to preserve inviolate, as it were, the idea, while it is subject to the difficult process of clothing it with form, has been her life-long endeavor. In bronze, by means of wax, she succeeded, after repeated failures, with incredible perseverance. A figure of St. Michael in one of her works was thus cast seven times. The least obstacle, were it only the breadth of a pin’s point in one of the air-vents which are necessary to draw the seething metal into every part of the mould, is enough to destroy the work. At last her head workman brought her St. Michael complete; all the energy and delicacy of the original design being preserved, and none of the pristine freshness lost in the translation from wax to bronze.
Mademoiselle de Fauveau works almost incessantly, scarcely allowing herself any relaxation. Her principal associates are a few of the higher church dignitaries, and two or three distinguished Italian or foreign families. Retirement is agreeable to her, and her political opinions have drawn around her a line of demarkation. She has paid two visits to Rome: one when the Duc de Bordeaux was there. He paid her much attention, as did the two great princes of art, Cornelius and Tenerani, at that time in Rome. Thus situated, beloved by many, admired and appreciated by all, this clever artist and noble woman leads an honored life, which seems a realized dream of work, progress, and success.
From every point of view, a life so spent is a curious and interesting study. There is the independence belonging to an existence devoted to art, with almost cloistral simplicity and formality. She had been hardly ever separated from her proud and devoted mother till her death, in 1858. The loss left her inconsolable. Her brother, an artist of merit, resides with her, assists in most of her works, and is the support and comfort of her life. Her happy home and domestic relations have helped to expand and refine her genius. A woman’s art, as well as her heart, suffers when the home in which she works is uncongenial. Our artist’s name—Felicie—has proved a good omen for one who is at once “a good woman and a great artist.”
ROSA BONHEUR.[3]
[3] This sketch was prepared under the supervision of Mademoiselle Bonheur.