1812 Robillard Library
Géricault Life
Portrait de M. Dupont Collectionneur 1832 (Portrait of Mr. Dupont Collecteur 1832 – detail), Joseph-Desire Court – Musée des Beaux-Arts, Rouen.
Introduction
On May 18th, 1812, Angélique-Louise Morize, the wife of Jacques-Florent Robillard, died in Paris in the family hotel at n° 22 rue du Mont Blanc. The inventaire taken after her death provides fascinating details of life in the Robillard apartments, including confirmation of the Robillard’s involvement in the production of the Musée français.
As we dicussed in preceding issues, the Musée français grew out of a plan conceived by Théodore Géricault’s Robillard relations Louis-Nicolas Robillard de Peronville and Pierre Laurent to produce and sell engravings of the most-highly regarded pieces in the Museum Central des Arts to elite clients. I contend that Théodore Géricault’s close proximity to the Musée français during his formative years had a profound influence on Géricault’s career as an artist.
The Géricault family’s ties to the Robillards went back three generations. Thédore’s maternal grandmother was sister-in-law to Pierre-Antoine Robillard. Théodore’s maternal uncle Jean-Baptiste Caruel was a founding partner of the Robillard tobacco concern at the Hôtel de Longueville formed in 1791 with his aunt’s husband, Pierre-Antoine Robillard, and Jacques-Florent Robillard, another nephew of Pierre-Antoine Robillard. Théodore’s Géricault father, Georges-Nicolas Géricault, a lawyer by training, found employment with the concern when the family moved from Rouen to Paris around 1796. Jean-Baptiste Caruel lived gorgeous apartments at the Hôtel de Longueville alongside Jacques-Florent Robillard, Angélique-Louise Morize and their two sons Pierre and Amédée-Selim for a decade. The partners became immensely wealthy and bought estates and palaces. In 1800, Jacques-Florent Robillard was one of the founders of the new Bank of France and moved his family into new apartments on the fashionable rue du Mont Blanc.
The great wealth generated by private tobacco concerns attracted the attention of the government. Emperor Napoléon Bonaparte re-established the government monopoly on tobacco manufacturing and sales in 1810. In recognition of his service to France, and perhaps as a form of compensation, the emperor made Jacques-Florent Robillard the Baron Robillard de Magnanville that same year. Angélique-Louise Morize became the Baroness de Magnanville, but passed just two years later.
Library of Jacques Florent Robillard and Pierre Robillard
As noted, the inventaire after the death of Angélique Louise Morize provides us with a wealth of information about life in the Robillard home in 1812. The references to the Musée Français in the inventaire appear in the section entitled: “Suite de l’inventorie des livres composant la Bibliothèque de M. Robillard et dans laquelle sont compris ceux de M. Le Chevalier Robillard son fils.” (What follows is the inventory of the books comprising the library of Mr. Robillard and which comprises those of his son the Chevalier 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
Conclusion
Documents presented in the January issue of GLM confirmed that Jean-Baptiste Caruel, Théodore Géricault’s maternal uncle, also possessed a large collection of Musée français engravings. The very large collection of Musée Français engravings identified in the inventaire after the death of Anglélique-Louise Morize confirms a similar active interest in the Robillard de Peronville & Laurent art enterprise. This fits the family pattern. We have seen other examples of family member’s participating and investing family businesses at the Hôtel de Longueville and in Robillard slave plantations in Saint Domingue.
I have argued that the production of the Musée Français had a profound influence on Théodore Géricault. Musée Français engravings were present in the Géricault family home on the rue de l’Université from 1804 at the latest. We know that Jean-Baptiste Caruel took over the lease for the family apartments on the rue de l’Université in 1804. Théodore Géricault would have seen Musée français engravings in his own home; in the home and offices of Louis Robillard de Peronville, and perhaps the home of Pierre Laurent; and, as the inventaire of Angélique-Louise confirms, in the apartments of Jacques-Florent Robillard and Angélique-Louise Morize.
The Musée français engravings enabled Théodore to study the finest works in the Louvre at the museum, and later at his leisure, whenever and as often as he pleased. Because members of his own family were so directly involved in the creation and sale of these reproductions, Théodore could feel even as a youth that he was part of this family project. Théodore Géricault and other family members visited the Museum Central des Arts in the Louvre long before 1802, we can be sure. After 1802, all family members would have felt some measure of excitement from their close proximity to such a prestigious enterprise; for the Musée français was largest and most expensive private art project of the First Empire. The artists contracted to produce the drawings and engravings of the Musée français, artists such as Moreau le Jeune, would have become familiar to young Théodore at an early age.
From 1804, at the latest, Théodore would have seen, studied and examined these engravings – in livraisons, or folios; as bound volumes; and individually, when framed and mounted on walls, and when passed around in family homes for observation and as conversation pieces. In the process, young Théodore gained firsthand knowledge of the effort and costs involved in producing art of the highest quality, and acquired an understanding of every school of art in the Louvre collection, long before he was accepted to the studio of Carle Vernet in 1808.
Painter and art dealer Jean Louis Titon Laneuville lived alongside the Robillards and Jean-Baptiste Caruel at the Hôtel de Longueville from 1798. Titon Laneuville also invested in Musée français engravings. His painted portraits of Robillard family members, close proximity to the family at the Hôtel de Longueville, financial investment in the Musée français engravings, and lifelong support of Géricault’s career suggest that Titon Laneuville may well have been one of Théodore’s first teachers, or the first to recognize Théodore’s talent..
The 1847 inventaire of Jean-Baptiste Caruel, in which Caruel bequeaths his own substantial collection of Musée français engravings to his wife Alexandrine-Modeste Caruel de Saint-Martin – mother of Théodore’s only child, confirms Caruel’s early interest in the Musée français. Jean Baptiste has long been linked with Théodore’s career as an artist. Jean-Baptiste’s bequest to Alexandrine-Modeste, a critically important individual still shrouded from view, also raises intriguing questions about Alexandrine-Modeste, and her links to the Musée français and Géricault’s career.
The inventaire of Angélique-Louise Morize of 1812, thus, further confirms the importance of the Musée français in the lives of many closest to Géricault for much of his life. In issues to come, we will discuss the part played by the Musée français, and other collections of engravings, in the career of Théodore Géricault and other artists of his time, and this part of Géricault’s development which remained secret for so long.