1812 Pierre Robillard
Géricault Life
Portrait de M. Dupont Collectionneur 1832 (Portrait of Mr. Dupont Collecteur 1832 – detail), Joseph Desire Court – Musée des Beaux-Arts, Rouen.
Pierre Robillard
Pierre Robillard was born in Paris on July 4th, 1786, to Angelique Louise Morize and Jacques Florent Robillard. At that time, his father Jacques Florent Robillard was a contrôleur of the royal tobacco manufactory at the Hôtel de Longueville in Paris, a manager who helped supervise the production and sale of tobacco products for the royal tax farmers.
Pierre was therefore old enough to remember the attack on the Tuileries palace across the Place du Carrousel on August 10th, 1792, which deposed Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. Pierre then saw the guillotine erected just outside the entrance to the family residence, and do its terrible work from that August until early 1793. Théodore Géricault likely met Pierre Robillard sometime around 1795. Our view is that Géricault and his family travelled to Paris fairly often after 1795 to visit family living on the rue de Belle Chasse and at the Hôtel de Longueville.
We will add much more to our discussion of Pierre Robillard below. For now, we will leave readers with part of our earlier discussion of the library Pierre Robillard shared with his father, inventoried in 1812. As we shall see, Pierre Robillard also had an interest in the Musée français, the family art enterprise, which we contend so influenced Théodore Géricault. Louis Robillard de Péronville, the uncle of Pierre Robillard, produced the Musée francais with another relation the engraver Pierre Laurent. In 1802, Louis Robillard de Péronville partnered with Pierre Laurent to produce high-quality engravings of the paintings, sculptures, and bas-reliefs of the national collection housed in the Louvre.
Library of Jacques Florent Robillard and Pierre Robillard
…The large library Jacques Florent Robillard shared with his son PIerre reveals much about their tastes. The excerpt of the inventaire listing the books in their library begins with n° 425 Ouvres de Molière (Works of Molière.) Along with Molière, we find classical authoers such as Virgil. We also find a substantial number of books in English: n° 465, eight volumes of the Spectator of 1789; n°466, nine volumes of the Works of Alexander Pope of 1752; n° 467, Pope’s translations of the Odyssey and the Iliad; n° 469, Milton’s Paradise Lost, n° 470, the History of Tom Jones; French translations of Hume’s histories and other interesting works. Yet, the most valuable books in their collection, by far, are items n° 485 and n° 486.
Item n° 485 consists of ‘figures of the Musée Français – avant la lettre (before the letter) divided into eleven hardback volumes valued at 1500 francs.’ Item n° 486 consists of three volumes of the “même ouvrage” (same work) valued at no more than 600 francs.’ Thus, the inventaire confirms that, in 1812, Jacques Florent Robillard and Pierre Robillard held fourteen bound volumes of Robillard de Péronville and Laurent engravings in their shared library, valued together at more than two thousand francs…”
Inventaire après la décès de Mad. La Baronne Robillard – Angelique Morize (detail), 13 Nov, 1812. Image courtesy of the Archives Nationales (France) MC/ET/XIX/941