At the Fall of the Empire Gérard was presented by Talleyrand to Louis XVIII; and later still in 1820 Louis Philippe commissioned him to paint a portrait of the Duchesse d’Orléans (afterwards Queen Marie Amélie) in a white robe adorned with pearls. This painting was highly treasured by the Duc d’Aumale, who out of filial affection hung it above his bed, where it still remains.
Another portrait by Ary Scheffer of the same royal lady as a widow is also here. This was painted at Claremont during the exile of the Orleans family; and by the same artist is a portrait of the Duc d’Orléans, Louis Philippe’s eldest son, who met with an untimely end in a carriage accident. But Ary Scheffer’s chef d’œuvre at Chantilly is a portrait of Talleyrand, the most renowned and brilliant man of the Revolution,—a painting bequeathed to the Duc d’Aumale by his friend Lord Holland.
Ary Scheffer’s greatest pupil was Puvis de Chavannes, who far surpassed his master in the art of exquisite line—a characteristic especially noticeable in his painting of Ste. Geneviève in the Pantheon, where he shows us the Patron Saint of Paris watching over her beloved city; and again in another painting of St. Mary Magdalen at Frankfort. This artist is unfortunately not represented at Chantilly; nor is Jacques Louis David, whose vast canvases, the Sacre et l’Intronisation de l’Empereur and La Distribution des Aigles, are so conspicuous in the Louvre. In spite of the comments of Diderot—who very wisely pointed out that the chief aim of the ancients was to reproduce Nature and that those who merely copied archaic painters were doing just the reverse of those whom they were trying to imitate,—public taste followed David and discarded their former favourites, Greuze and Watteau.
Ingres, David’s pupil, is represented at Chantilly by some of his finest work. There is in the first place His Own Portrait painted at the age of twenty-four—a fine work, grand in its very simplicity—which Prince Napoleon always desired to possess and which the artist could hardly refuse to present to him. It passed thence into the possession of Reiset in 1868 and eventually in 1879 became the property of the Duc d’Aumale.
A most impressive picture is Stratonice (Tribune), painted for the Duc d’Orléans, who desired it as a pendant for Delaroche’s Assassination of the Duc de Guise. It was painted at the Villa Medici in Rome, where it aroused great enthusiasm. His princely patron generously gave him 63,000 francs for it, which was double the price agreed upon.
Another greatly admired composition by him at Chantilly is a Venus Anadyomène, which bears close affinity to the famous La Source in the Louvre.
The genius of Paul Delaroche brings us into the nineteenth century. His style has been characterised as the juste milieu; for he neither affected the manner of the Neo-Classics nor did he lean too much toward the Romantics. Never was a cowardly and dastardly murder better depicted than in his treatment of the Assassination of Henri, Duc de Guise. The King, Henri III, pale and trembling, emerges from behind a curtain to gaze upon his slaughtered victim, whilst the hired assassins gloat over their ghastly deed. This picture, which hangs in the Tribune, was painted by Delaroche specially for the Duc d’Orléans.
We now come to Eugène Delacroix, who, in company with Gericault, is considered as the pioneer of Romanticism. His Capture of Constantinople by the Crusaders at Chantilly is a vividly composed representation of this important event. The Two Foscari (Tribune) depicts one of the greatest tragedies in Venetian history. The Doge Francesco Foscari is shown to us sitting in judgment upon his own son, whom he is condemning to torture and banishment as a traitor to his country. The anguish of the son and the stern despair of the old father are suggested with wonderful skill. Delacroix’s greatest efforts were, however, directed against the paralysing influences of Academism; and his paintings in the Palais Bourbon and in the Galerie d’Apollon in the Louvre prove him to have been the finest colourist of the later French School.
Another artist of the Romantic School is Descamps, who is represented at Chantilly by no less than ten paintings and several water-colours. Amongst these a Turkish Landscape, painted during the artist’s early period, is perhaps the most attractive. On one side of the picture all is mystery and darkness, whilst upon the other fall the rays of a golden sunset. The problems of light and shade, to which he devoted himself so earnestly up to the very end of his career, are here treated with great effect. The same idea pervades his painting of Turkish Guards on their way from Smyrna to Magnesia. A town with minarets is to be seen in the background; a dark blue sky flecked with luminous white clouds; camels and their riders; all breathing that dreamy oriental sensation which appealed to him so strongly, and which he was never weary of reproducing.
Eugène Fromentin, who was as celebrated as a writer as he was as a painter, is represented in the Musée Condé by one of his finest landscapes. Transported to the Marshes of Medeah, a country so well described by him in his book Un Éte dans le Sahara, we see in the foreground three Bedouin chiefs, mounted on splendid Arab steeds, engaged in hawking. The atmosphere is transparent and clear, refreshed as it were by a recent shower, and the sky is flecked by white clouds. This artist, who died in 1876, was one of the most accomplished men of his time.