Henri de Triqueti, Auguste Préault, and the Glorification of Law under the July Monarchy

Abstract

In its early years, the French July Monarchy (1830-48) pursued a repressive domestic policy in the face of insurrection, assassination plots, and a vicious campaign of satire in the opposition press. Two unfamiliar aspects of this situation are examined here: the reflection, in official art, of the regime's professed commitment to constitutional legality and the repudiation, by dissident artists, of the July Monarchy's glorification of law. The article examines two major decorative commissions awarded by the regime to an officially favored Romantic sculptor, Baron Henri de Triqueti: the Protecting Law and Avenging Law reliefs in the Palais Bourbon and the bronze doors of the Church of the Madeleine representing The Ten Commandments. This consideration of official imagery is followed by an inquiry into a darker side of artistic production in the mid-1830's. After a look at the use of biblical parody in contemporary French political caricature, the article reconsiders a famous work by the fiercely nonconformist sculptor, Auguste Préault. It is argued that the enigmatic Tuerie was conceived as a pessimistic revision of Triqueti's reliefs in the Palais Bourbon. This new reading is placed in the context of the troubled political climate of 1834 and supported by reference to parallel tendencies in the contemporary fiction of Pétrus Borel.

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Notes on contributors

Jonathan P. Ribner

Jonathan P. Ribner has contributed articles to Arts Magazine and Marsyas. He is currently working on a book on Old Testament motifs of legislation in nineteenth-century French art. [Art History Department, Boston University, 725 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, MA 02215]