Pray and lay at Versailles. Casts of praying and recumbent figures in the Louis-Philippe Historical Galleries

“The Middle Ages lie in long vaulted galleries […] – I would never have suspected similar cloisters in the palace of Versailles; you’d think you were in Saint-Denis; the impression is complete: oozing moisture, mysterious day, fearful echo, knights lying long, hands joined, a lion under their feet; a real Gothic cloister, minus the arch. » (1) This is how Théophile Gautier evokes the atmosphere of the stone galleries of the Louis-Philippe Historical Museum when it opened in 1837. Imagined as spaces for wandering and passing through the museography route dedicated “to all the glories of France”, these galleries are populated with a myriad of sculptures of various typologies: full-length statues, and busts but also recumbent and praying figures.

By Juliette Maridet, graduate of the École du Louvre (Paris) and the Institut für Europäische Kunstgeschichte (Heidelberg)

Faithfully copied from the tombs populating the churches of France, the recumbent figures and praying figures that adorn the historic galleries of the Palace of Versailles were cast between 1834 and 1848 in the Louvre casting workshop. They hold a special place within the Louis-Philippe collections, due to their funerary nature. Fake cenotaphs, are brought together there for their commemorative function and constitute a formidable panorama of the history of sculpture from the 10th to the 19th century (2).

Selecting Tombs Worthy of Casting

When Louis-Philippe decreed the creation of the museum in 1833, the royal museums, under the aegis of Count Auguste de Forbin, then Alphonse de Cailleux from 1841, embarked on a search for the most notable effigies of the national history: Gaston Brière – curator at the castle between 1932 and 1938 – reports a real “investigation undertaken by all of France” (3). Members of the royal family are naturally targeted, as are portraits of foreign sovereigns. Representatives of prestigious French lineages are also sought, to reconcile all parties and justify a “monarchy lacking legitimacy” (4). Once the characters have been selected, the molders are sent to their funerary monuments, the latter offering easily accessible portraits, while the local authorities, from prefects to church priests, are called upon. Among them, some even participated in this selection: in Souvigny, for example, it was first decided to cast the recumbent figures of Charles I of Bourbon and Agnes of Burgundy. The priest Chambon, informed of this enterprise, wrote to Cailleux to extol the merits of other tombs present in his church: “Would it not be appropriate, since Mr. Jacquet and the workers are, at this moment, on the places, to execute that of three other statues which are in the church of Souvigny? » (5) The three recumbent figures in question are those of Béatrix de Bourbon, Louis II de Bourbon and Anne d'Auvergne, and Cailleux, convinced by the priest's idea, had them cast. Thus the original iconographic corpus is modulated and enriched over time.

In addition to the person it represents, the cenotaph is appreciated as a work of art intended to be copied and placed in the museum. The priest Chambon specifies for the attention of Cailleux: “Would his casting not be of interest from both the point of view of history and art? » (6) The aim of the enterprise is therefore multiple: to constitute a gallery of historical figures to present to the visitor, but also to ensure the artistic quality of the effigies chosen to appear in a museum under royal patronage. The iconography, the artistic character as well as the state of conservation are therefore all selection criteria that strictly govern the operations.

The logistical and technical aspects of the molding campaign

It is François-Henri Jacquet, molder of the Royal Museum since 1818, who is in charge of most of the stamping or “impression-taking” campaigns which then make it possible to form the molds. Official letters reached the site upstream, demanding easier access to the tombs. These companies sometimes worry local officials, and despite their obligation to bow to the wishes of the royal administration, some are apprehensive about the operation. The prefect of Saône-et-Loire, Jean-Juste Delmas, is alarmed, for example, by the casting of the statues of Pierre Jeannin and Anne Guéniot: “This operation should be carried out in the first days of October in later; if it took place during cold weather, it would be feared that the humidity of the plaster would cause the marble to undergo some deterioration and alter its whiteness. You will want to recommend that the molder take the greatest care in his work. » (7)

Warned by the guards of the place, Jacquet's teams swarm across French territory. A map makes it possible to visualize the scale of the enterprise and the geographical extent of these expeditions: if the molders of the Louvre work throughout the northern half of the territory – even reaching as far as London, Bruges, Valletta, and Granada –, They did not have time to go further south than Bourg-en-Bresse before the fall of the July monarchy in 1848.

The molds then repatriated to the Louvre workshops, made it possible to create a plaster copy of the tomb in a few months. The resulting figure, lighter, can thus be easily transported to Versailles and offers an effective alternative to the marble monument – a material still represented in the Historical Galleries to the tune of fifty-six original tombs. One hundred and twenty copies of praying figures and recumbent figures were thus made in plaster for the stone galleries, first between 1834 and 1837, then between 1843 and 1848 – the break probably be explained by the independent operation of the museum during the first years of its opening to the public. Arranged for the vast majority in the four stone galleries of the castle, the casts are distributed according to a museographic logic which should lead the visitor to the high point of the tour: the Battles Gallery.

Character creations

Among the casts of tombs, Brière mentions the “constitution of fakes, […] using altered and faked pieces” (8). Jacquet's teams sometimes resorted to modifications, even inventions. Concerning the plaster prayer of Cardinal de Fleury, placed in the gallery on the first floor of the Midi wing, Brière discovered that his body was in reality a copy of the prayer of Cardinal Dubois, made in 1725 by Guillaume I Coustou and preserved in the Saint-Roch church, while the head is a creation by François-Henri Jacquet. Thus, the latter is responsible for designing ex nihilo parts as essential as the face of the effigy itself. It then gives birth to “a kind of monster, a hybrid compound” (9) which responds to the iconographic aim of the museum. The latter is intended as a history book to be browsed, but accuracy – and the concept of authenticity of the work of art – do not necessarily guide operations.

Cenotaphs serving the museum's purpose

This flexibility is sometimes misunderstood by the public. It can be translated, independently of the iconographic scope of these representations, by a desire for a museographic order. Unlike Alexandre Lenoir's Museum of French Monuments, the tombs in the Versailles galleries are neither contextualized nor periodized. As in Saint-Denis, where the royal monuments were transferred in 1816 when the Lenoir museum had to close, they are lined up regularly, devoid of their original genius, weepings, or bas-reliefs. Observing the different views of the stone galleries in their Louis-Philippe state allows us to perceive a profound visual harmony: the funerary figures – praying on one side of the gallery or sleeping on the other – alternate regularly with the remaining statues and busts, creating symmetry and balance that blends majestically into the monumental corridors of Hardouin-Mansart. The different eras from which these figures come, as well as their funerary function, are erased in favor of a strict order and only the costumes of the characters provide an overview of past centuries. Thus opposing the historicist atmosphere of the neo-Gothic decor of the rooms of the Crusades, the mineral atmosphere of the stone galleries, vaulted according to the art of stereotomy and paved with black and white marble paving, matches the spiritual and timeless significance of men and women praying or lying in eternity. The unity of tones, from the white of the plasters to the beige of the bases and vaults, offers a visual respite to the visitor and breaks with the decorative overload implemented in the rest of the museum.

According to Théophile Gautier, “going from one end of the gallery to the other is a real journey” (10), a journey that one undertook then with a guide in hand – the most notable being undoubtedly the one published in 1839 at Vinchon. This guide made it possible to associate with each work a short notice detailing the deeds of each of the characters represented, thus facilitating learning for the visiting citizen.

A contrasting reception

When they opened on June 12, 1837, some fifteen hundred guests flocked to the historic Galleries of Louis-Philippe. Despite real popular success, intellectuals are divided. Twice occupying the columns of La Presse, Gautier is full of praise: he approves of the museification that Louis-Philippe is undertaking at Versailles which, if it opposes the overflowing bustle of Louis XIV's Versailles, also contributes to its backup: “Versailles is dead, and all we can do with it is to make it a historically curious and venerable mummy. This is what King Louis-Philippe, with this admirable common sense which is almost genius, understood perfectly; he felt very well that the only way to repopulate Versailles, which is becoming more deserted every day, [was] […] quite simply to bring paintings there, and to add even more populations of statues […]. The king therefore lodged in this dead city all the dead glories, all the dead royalty. » (11)

In L'Artiste, an anonymous columnist for his part expresses numerous reservations as to the relevance of the museography implemented: “The system according to which [the monuments] have been classified takes away from them in the eyes of the public a large part of their interest. […] We will ask if this symmetrical arrangement fulfills the goal we proposed and if this is how we should understand a historical museum. This classification, while arbitrary, obviously lacks scope. » (12)

He denounces the fact that “we wanted to speak to the eyes much more than to the intelligence of the public” (13). Did Louis-Philippe only create avenues of decorative and harmonious sculptures, thus neglecting scientific rigor? While Gautier praises the “already so complete” (14) aspect of the museum tour, the anonymous author deplores its incomplete nature.

The gradual dismantling of a collection

The fall of the July monarchy brought an abrupt end to the museum enterprise initiated by Louis-Philippe at Versailles and to the tomb molding campaigns. The Versailles museum is neglected. From the 1880s, during exchanges between the Louvre Museum, which coveted marble tombs, and the Versailles Museum, dedicated to French history and iconography, the corpus was first reduced times. In 1953, the majority of funerary casts made under Louis-Philippe were transported to the crypt of the Château de Pierrefonds, to clear access to the Royal Opera. This “massive transfer” (15) is also linked to a change in taste, with plaster falling into notable disfavor in the 20th century. Despite concerns related to their state of conservation expressed as early as 1955 and significant damage due to the combined action of humidity and the darkness of the place, the casts remain in storage in Pierrefonds where they have been presented since 2006 within a scenography, called the “Bal des Gisants”, involving sound and light effects. At Versailles, only one cast, out of a set of one hundred and twenty plaster tombs, has retained its original location: that of Henri II de Bourbon. The rest is kept in the Versailles reserves. As for the overmoldings, for some, they are the only vestiges of what the tombs arranged in front of the window arches were under Louis-Philippe.

Because they are located at the crossroads of the growing interest in the commemoration of the great men of France that has been brewing since the second half of the 18th century and the search for a new museography aesthetic under Louis-Philippe, the casts of recumbent figures and prayers must today, through the desire to conserve the Sculptures of the castle, find their original arrangement in certain spaces of the museum. This undertaking aims to make ever more intelligible the richness of the tangle of eras that permeates the walls of the Palace of Versailles.