Corinne au Cap Misène(Baron François Gérard)
The subject matter is taken from Book XIII of Corinne ou lItalie, the celebrated romantic novel by the captivating, if sometimes notorious Madame de Staël. Published in 1807, Corinne tells the story of Oswald Lord Nelvil, a Scottish nobleman who travels to Italy following the death of his father, and there falls in love with the enigmatic beauty, Corinne, a poetess whom de Staël portrays as a sort of cross between Sappho and Petrarch by way of the Delphic mysteries. Being less of a person, that the embodiment of Italy (as seen by the French Romantic Movement), Corinne is eventually abandoned by her love in favour of her more conventional English counterpart, who as it happens turns out to be her long-lost sister. In present scene, taken from Chapter III and strikingly faithful to the text, Corinne is about to perform an evening of music and dances for Oswald upon Cape Miseno, above the Bay of Naples. Amid the festivities, Corinne is encouraged by the gathered crowd to perform as she had on the Capitoline Hill, and anxious to win Oswald’s attentions once again, she consents, but overwhelmed by the splendour of their setting, the roiling skies, and her own feminine intuition, she is suddenly overcome by emotion and foreboding. As Madame de Staël describes:
“The pure pale glow of the moon lit up her face, the fresh sea breeze blew her hair, and it seemed as if nature delighted in making her lovelier still. Yet Corinne was suddenly seized by overwhelming emotion; she contemplated the enchanting setting, this intoxicating evening, Oswald who was there beside her, but who might not be there always, and tears streamed from her eyes.”
Baron Gérard was commissioned to paint several scenes from Corinne on various occasions, as the novel was wildly popular in the early 19th century and its romantic metaphors evidently delighted cultured European sensibilities of the time.
The present canvas, which was commissioned by the Maison du Roi under Louis XVIII, followed a similar and larger-scale version painted for de Staël’s admirer Prince August Wilhelm of Prussia (Musée de Beaux-Arts, Lyon, 256 by 277 cm). This latter picture was designed as a memorial to de Staël two years after her death and offered to Mme Récamier in 1821, who subsequently donated it to the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Lyon in 1849. According to Alain Latreille, the present painting was exhibited at the Salon of 1822, but arrived late and was consequently confused in Adolphe Thiers’ description of the 1822 Salon with the Mme Récamier canvas with which he was already familiar. Similar confusion could also explain the painting’s listing at the 1824 Salon.
Having secured his reputation with earlier works such as Portrait of Isabey (1796) and Cupid and Psyche (1798), Baron Gérard subsequently received multiple commissions under the Napoleonic regime from the Imperial Family, various French dynasties and numerous writers, scholars, soldiers and diplomats of the European elite. Dubbed “the painter of kings and the king of painters,” he here transposes his skill as a portraitist to affectively render the heightened emotion and human drama of de Staël’s novel which had so captured public imagination.
Illustrating most of the novels characters, Gérards scene includes in addition his loose portrait of de Stael in Corinne, Oswald, his English companions, Corinnes close friend, Prince Castelforte (just behind Oswald), some Neapolitan sailors, Levantine, who have docked their ship in port, and natives of the neighbouring islands of Ischia and Procida. As well as reducing the scale of the scene from the 1819 commission, Gérard also added the seated figure in the bottom left, possibly to concentrate the focus more exclusively on Corinne. This same composition including the seated figure was engraved by Zachée Prevost, and exhibited at the Salon of 1827.
Gérard also paid careful attention to the specific view as described in de Staëls prose:
“From the height of the peak which stretches out into the sea and forms the Cape Miseno one sees clearly Vesuvius, the gulf of Naples, the islands scattered across the bay and the countryside which stretches out from Naples right up to Gaeta: the land where volcanoes, history and poetry have left their traces more than anywhere else on earth”.
In a further development from the picture in Lyon Museum, Gérard here shifted Vesuvius to the extreme left of his background, making Oswald’s head the highest point of focus. Likewise, Corinne’s upturned face, too, poignantly breaks the distant horizon, again, concentrating the focus upon their complex, and dramatically varied expressions of emotion. Perhaps inspired by an idealised physical allusion to Madame de Staël herself, in the tradition of Vigée Lebrun’s 1808 portrait (Geneva, Musée d’Art et d’Histoire), Oswald’s features, as in the Lyon version, bear a discernible semblance to those of her longstanding admirer Prince August Wilhelm.
Palpably Romantic in spirit and composition, Gerards work is rendered with the firm contours, bold palette and finely sculpted faces he learned in the studio of David. Indeed, this painting should be appreciated as a sophisticated fusion of Neo-Classicist precision with the rich sensuality of Romanticism.
Commissioned by the Maison du Roi (M.d.R.) under Louis XVIII on October 16, 1820 (paid FF 20,000);
Musee Royal du Luxembourg (inv. No. MR/No 3804 on the reverse);
Taken away by Charles X and offered in 1828 to Madame Zoë Talon, Countess Baschi du Cayla (1785-1852);
Removed from museum inventory in 1833;
By descent to the Countesss daughter, Ugoline Baschi du Cayla, wife of Prince Beauvau Craon;
By whom donated to the Marquis Christian de N***, according to the will of the Countess du Cayla (executed by Maître Yver, Paris, 17 April 1852): Vous rachetterez le tableau de Corine pour loffrir à M. le Marquis Christian de N*** qui voudra bien jespère, laccepter en mémoire de moi, plus tard.;
Thence by descent in the family.
Probably A Thiers, Salon de Mil Huit Cent Vingt-Deux, ou Collection des articles insérés au constitutionnel sur lexposition de cette année, Paris, 1822, pp. 43-92.
Probably exhibited in the Paris Salon of 1822, no. 569 as Corinne au cap Misene (M.d.R.);Paris, Salon of 1824, no. 476 as Répétition avec divers changements du tableau de Corinne (bears the M.d.R. mention in Sanchez and Seydoux [1999 re-ed.]).