VICTOR PHILIPPE AUGUSTE DE FAUQUE DE JONQUIERES... - Lot 115 - Osenat

VICTOR PHILIPPE AUGUSTE DE FAUQUE DE JONQUIERES (PARIS, 1816 - PARIS ?, 1885) Napoleon Bonaparte liberating the prisoners of the Temple accompanied by Nicolas Frochot, prefect of the Seine and Paris. Oil on canvas Signed and dated lower right 1860. 117 x 90 cm Frame in wood and gilded stucco. Biography: Victor Philippe Auguste de FAUQUE de JONQUIERES was born on December 1, 1816 in Paris in the second district. He was the son of Louis Victor Fauque de Jonquières (1782-1867), head of division at the Ministry of the King, and of Françoise Hortense Brulé (1784-1867), originally from Saint Domingue. Victor de Jonquières was first present at the Paris Salon between 1838 and 1849 without indicating a particular master. He began with family portraits and religious paintings. He was noticed in 1842 with La Madeleine aux pieds de Jésus which was bought for 800fr at the end of the Salon and deposited in the church of Jussey in Haute-Saône. His first history painting was presented in 1845 with The Duke of Orleans at the Battle of Nerwinde (July 29, 1693). This was followed by a commission from the Ministry of the Interior, which was exhibited at the 1849 Salon, Unveiling and Death of the Archbishop of Paris at the Saint-Antoine Barricade on Sunday, June 25, 1848. The painting is said to be on deposit in a museum in Versailles today. Several years followed during which the artist continued to produce but did not exhibit. Our painting is the very example of this. Victor de Jonquières resumed exhibiting at the Salon 17 years later in 1866 as a student of François Dubois, Merry-Joseph Blondel and Horace Vernet. He exhibited simultaneously at the Paris Salon and the Rouen Salon. The Emperor acquired the Parisian painting representing the Promenade of the Imperial Prince. The artist also participated in the Rouen exhibition of 1868 and the Lyon exhibition of 1869. His last official appearance was in Paris at the 1870 Salon with a painting entitled Le Réveil (Alfred de Musset, Poésies). Victor de Jonquieres died on December 7, 1885 in his 69th year, most likely in his Parisian residence. History: The scene in our painting shows Napoleon Bonaparte visiting the Temple Prison accompanied by Nicolas Frochot (1761-1828), the first prefect of the Seine and of Paris, wearing the tricolor scarf. Before being a prison, this building called the enclosure of the Temple grouped several luxurious mansions, properties of the Count of Artois, brother of Louis XVI. During the Revolution, all the mansions suffered the same fate and were transformed into prisons. From August 1792, the royal family was locked up in the Temple tower. The Temple prison, as it became known, became a place of memory of the monarchy. It is thus under the Empire, in order to avoid that this building becomes a place of pilgrimage for the nostalgic of the Bourbon, that Napoleon makes demolish the tower in 1808.