Froment Meurice

Apollo, July, 2003 by Diana Scarisbrick

The Musee de la Vie Romantique was an ideal setting for the recent exhibition devoted to Francois-Desire Froment-Meurice (1802-55) and his son Emile (1837-1913). It was there that Ary Scheffer, whose home and studio it was, entertained the remarkable artistic and literary circle frequented by the Froment-Meurice family. They were particularly close to Victor Hugo, the greatest lyric poet and dramatist of the period, who in an ode 'A M. Froment-Meurice' of 1841 declared they

they were like brothers, and compared the silversmith to Benvenuto Cellini and to Michelangelo. According to Theophile Gautier, who was also a friend, Francois-Desire expressed the eclectic spirit of romanticism through the medium of silver and jewellery just as eloquently as Franz Liszt did in music and Eugene Delacroix in painting.

As the Benvenuto Cellini of romanticism, Francois-Desire looked for inspiration from the work of the virtuoso goldsmiths of the renaissance. This was made clear by the sculptural character, design and motifs of the table silver, candlesticks, racing trophies (Fig. 1), presentation caskets and vases displayed in the first room. Moreover, with his versions of the Milanese hardstone vases so prized by Francois I and Rudolph n, he proved that he could do far more than merely copy the sixteenth-century masters. The three examples of his famous Coupe de vendanges, shown together for the first time, are distinguished by the originality of the figurative silver mounts which illustrate the effects of Bacchus on human reason, and are embellished with enamelled branches of vine and bunches of pearl grapes. A pair of agate and cornelian cups made for the Russian aesthete, Prince Soltikoff, are supported respectively by 'troubadour' figures of an embattled crusader by a palm tree and his lady love on horseback awaiting his return home beneath an oak tree. Like these, each object from Froment-Maurice evoked a past golden age or an exotic far away place, challenging the sense of history. Certainly, his tea and dinner services combining oriental shapes and patterns with neo-renaissance female masks would have provided a talking-point for the company seated round the table.

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

As well as nostalgia for good old days, other aspects of nineteenth-century French history--outstanding men and women, politics, religion, sporting interests, literature--are evoked through the work of both father and son. Particularly well represented was the Catholic Revival, for the sight of so much liturgical plate--monstrances, chalices, reliquaries, portable altars--and the crosiers of the bishops of Amiens and Fribourg, had the effect of inducing a reverential hush, as if one were entering a cathedral. Here was overwhelming evidence of the fervour and determination of the Roman Catholic clergy, and people to re-establish the church in France after the damage inflicted on it by the revolution of 1789. The lead was taken by Queen Marie Amelie, who gave a monstrance to Pope Pius IX, subsequently donated by him to Cologne cathedral. The exhibition included a remarkable group commissioned by the clergy of the Madeleine which kept the firm afloat in the difficult period after the revolution of 1848. Soon after the installation of Napoleon III as Emperor, he asked Francois-Desire to create a majestic reliquary, which came to be known as Le talisman de Charlemagne, to enshrine fragments of Christ's swaddling clothes, the robe of the Virgin, the shroud of St John the Baptist and a bone from the arm of Charlemagne himself. However, the distinctive rounded arches and sculptural elements deriving from the art and architecture of the Italian and French renaissance used here, were soon to be superseded by the pronounced neo-gothic style which characterises Emile's church commissions until the end of the century when he adopts the naturalism of Art Nouveau. The faith of the time was further underlined by the number of sacred objects embellished with gems donated by devout women, such as Princess Marie-Immaculee de Bourbon-Siciles. In accordance with her last wishes, diamond flowers and leaves from her tiara surround the container for the host of a monstrance made in 1874 for the Church of the Sacre Coeur at Issoudon.

The vases presented to the engineer H.C. Emmery, who gave the city its water supply and sewers, and to Baron Feucheres, who paid for new hospitals, began the series recalling important events in this history of Paris, executed by father and son, both official silversmiths. Outstanding military and naval personalities were evoked by the grand swords of honour made for Generals Changarnier and Cavaignac (with the casket for the latter's epaulettes), and that of Admiral Courbet. It is clear that Francois-Desire's talents were recognised from an early age, not only by rich art lovers, but also by officials, and that Emile, on succeeding his father, won the same confidence. But how did they achieve so much?

It was Theophile Gautier who compared Francois-Desire to the conductor of an orchestra, commanding a team of specialists to execute every commission, whether great or small. This gift for collaboration resulted in his tour de force, the Toilette of the Duchesse de Parme, where he not only assigned the respective contributions, but approved and corrected them at every stage until they were ready for co-ordination into his grand design. Here too his creation mirrors the aspirations of a section of society, composed of the families who remained loyal to the Legitimist branch of the Bourbons who went into exile with Charles X in 1830, and wished to demonstrate their support with a present to his granddaughter on her marriage to the Duc de Parme and hereditary Prince de Lucques, future duc de Parme in 1845. Not only were the Toilette's dressing-table, mirror, candelabra, ewer and basin (Fig. 3), and jewellery caskets in the tradition of those previously made for the French monarchy, but what is more the Toilette is decorated throughout with motifs evocative of 'la vieille France'. There are Bourbon lilies everywhere, the arms of France and Lucca and of the provinces of France emblazoned on heraldic shields, standing figures of celestial warriors, while the heroes of French history--Gaston de Foix, Bayard, Olivier de Clisson and Xaintrailles--standing guard over the caskets painted with twenty famous women including Ste Radegonde and Joan of Arc. This epitome of royalist and patriotic fervour is combined with inscriptions and a world of other decorative motifs--scrolling vines, arabesques, lizards, birds, flowers and putti--perfectly executed in an equally vast range of techniques. Six years in the making, it was delivered to the Duchesse after the London Great Exhibition of 1851. Following her death in 1864 as a political exile in Switzerland, the Toilette was put in a furniture depository where it remained until Jacques Kugel found it there in 1981 and it was acquired for the new Musee d'Orsay, thanks to a grant authorised by President Valery Giscard d'Estaing.