Bulletin du Centre de Recherche du Château de Versailles (Oct 2021)
Une visite nocturne dans la galerie de pierre : Auguste Vinchon ou les deux histoires du musée Louis-Philippe
Abstract
This article will examine an 1848 painting by Auguste Vinchon Louis-Philippe et la famille royale visitent les Galeries historiques de Versailles. The composition is a night scene with, at its centre, the king and his retinue stopping to admire the full-length statue of Joan of Arc sculpted by Marie d’Orléans. The painting, which until recently has served simply as an illustration of the Galeries Historiques, contains a number of peculiarities that we would like to bring to light the better to explore the galleries’ role in the imagery of the July Monarchy. Using Vinchon’s preparatory drawings as a base, we can retrace his creative process and better understand the manner in which he conceived of the ensemble effect of his composition. This effect, hinging on the centrality of Marie d’Orléans’ statue of Joan of Arc, seems to bring out a certain ambivalence in the representation of the heroine. Although this painting does not represent a clear break with the iconography of the Galeries Historiques and their founder, it has been placed in the margins of this corpus by the very nature of the scene it illustrates.
