Le Duel après le bal masqué - Thomas Couture - Wallace Collection

''The Duel After the Masquerade'' is a painting by the French artist

Jean-Léon Gérôme Jean-Léon Gérôme (11 May 1824 – 10 January 1904) was a French painter and sculptor in the style now known as academicism. His paintings were so widely reproduced that he was "arguably the world's most famous living artist by 1880." The ra ...

, of which multiple copies exist. The original, ''Suite d'un bal masqué'', first shown in 1857, is in the

Musée Condé The Musée Condé – in English, the Condé Museum – is a French museum located inside the Château de Chantilly in Chantilly, Oise, 40 km north of Paris. In 1897, Henri d'Orléans, Duke of Aumale, son of Louis Philippe I, bequeathed the ...

Chantilly Chantilly may refer to: Places France *Chantilly, Oise, a city located in the Oise department **US Chantilly, a football club *Château de Chantilly, a historic château located in the town of Chantilly United States * Chantilly, Missou ...

, France.

History

Gérôme exhibited ''Suite d'un bal masqué'' at the Paris Salon of 1857, then in London the same year with the English merchant Gambart. The painting became famous almost overnight with critics of the Salon speculating about Gerome's sources for the incident depicted in the painting. (The theme seems to have been in fashion;

Thomas Couture Thomas Couture (21 December 1815 – 30 March 1879) was a French history painter and teacher. He taught such later luminaries of the art world as Édouard Manet, Henri Fantin-Latour, John La Farge,Wilkinson, Burke. ''The Life and Works of A ...

dealt with the same subject in 1857 with '' Le Duel après le bal masqué'', now in the

Wallace Collection The Wallace Collection is a museum in London occupying Hertford House in Manchester Square, the former townhouse of the Seymour family, Marquesses of Hertford. It is named after Sir Richard Wallace, who built the extensive collection, along ...

). The painting was acquired in 1858 by the duc d'Aumale. Gérôme borrowed the painting to present it at the Universal Exhibition of 1867, and received the Grand Prix de Peinture. The original is part of the collection of the

, France. In 1859,

William Thompson Walters William Thompson Walters (May 23, 1820 – November 22, 1894) was an American businessman and art collector, whose collection formed the basis of the Walters Art Museum. Early life Walters was born on the Juniata River in Liverpool, Pennsy ...

purchased ''The Duel After the Masquerade'' at the National Academy of Design in New York for $2,500. The painting is a replica by Gérôme of his 1857 work ''Suite d'un bal masqué''. It was not unusual for artists to replicate their own paintings; Gérôme also painted versions for Prince Alexander of Russia (now in the

Hermitage Museum The State Hermitage Museum ( rus, Государственный Эрмитаж, r=Gosudarstvennyj Ermitaž, p=ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)ɨj ɪrmʲɪˈtaʂ, links=no) is a museum of art and culture in Saint Petersburg, Russia. It is the largest ...

) and for the Ali Pacha. Walters asked the manager of the exhibition at the National Academy of Design for a letter of authentication from Gérôme and a comparison of his copy to the original. In a poll taken in the winter of 1909–1910,

Baltimore Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...

ans were asked to identify their fifty-five favorite works of art, and ''The Duel After the Masquerade'' topped the list.

Composition

The scene is set on a gray winter morning in the

Bois de Boulogne The Bois de Boulogne (, "Boulogne woodland") is a large public park located along the western edge of the 16th arrondissement of Paris, near the suburb of Boulogne-Billancourt and Neuilly-sur-Seine. The land was ceded to the city of Paris by t ...

, trees bare and snow covering the ground. A man dressed as a

Pierrot Pierrot ( , , ) is a stock character of pantomime and '' commedia dell'arte'', whose origins are in the late seventeenth-century Italian troupe of players performing in Paris and known as the Comédie-Italienne. The name is a diminutive of ''Pi ...

has been mortally wounded in a duel and has collapsed into the arms of a Duc de Guise. A surgeon, dressed as a

doge of Venice The Doge of Venice ( ; vec, Doxe de Venexia ; it, Doge di Venezia ; all derived from Latin ', "military leader"), sometimes translated as Duke (compare the Italian '), was the chief magistrate and leader of the Republic of Venice between 726 ...

, tries to stop the flow of blood, while a

Domino Dominoes is a family of tile-based games played with gaming pieces, commonly known as dominoes. Each domino is a rectangular tile, usually with a line dividing its face into two square ''ends''. Each end is marked with a number of spots (also c ...

clutches his own head. The survivor of the duel, dressed as an American Indian, walks away with his second,

Harlequin Harlequin (; it, Arlecchino ; lmo, Arlechin, Bergamasque pronunciation ) is the best-known of the '' zanni'' or comic servant characters from the Italian '' commedia dell'arte'', associated with the city of Bergamo. The role is traditional ...

, leaving behind his weapon and some feathers of his

headdress Headgear, headwear, or headdress is the name given to any element of clothing which is worn on one's head, including hats, helmets, turbans and many other types. Headgear is worn for many purposes, including protection against the elements, d ...

, towards his carriage, shown waiting in the background. It was characteristic of Gérôme to depict not a violent event itself, but the aftermath of such violence; see '' The Death of Caesar'', ''

The Execution of Marshal Ney ''The Execution of Marshal Ney'' () is an 1868 painting by the French artist Jean-Léon Gérôme. It depicts the French Marshal Michel Ney immediately after his execution on 7 December 1815, with the firing squad seen marching away from the site ...

'', and ''Jerusalem''. The bizarreness of the scene in regard to the brightly colored costumes turns to pathos at the sight of blood on the Pierrot.

Exhibition history

The Walters indicates that the work has been included in the following exhibitions: *''From Ingres to Gauguin: French Nineteenth Century Paintings Owned in Maryland''. Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore. 1951. *''The Taste of Maryland: Art Collecting in Maryland 1800–1934''. The Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore. 1984. *''Highlights from the Collection''. The Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore. 1998–2001. *''Triumph of French Painting: Masterpieces from Ingres to Matisse''. Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore; Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa; Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach; Royal Academy of Arts, London; Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo; Dayton Art Institute, Dayton. 2000–2002. *''A Magnificent Age: Masterpieces from the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore''. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City; Mint Museum of Art, Charlotte; The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore. 2002–2004. *''Déjà Vu? Revealing Repetition in French Masterpieces''. The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore; Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix. 2007–2008. *''The Spectacular Art of Jean-Léon Gérôme''. J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; Musee D'Orsay, Paris; Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid. 2010–2011. *''From Rye to Raphael: The Walters Story''. The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore. 2014–2016.

References

External links

Walters Art Museum version
at

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Duel After the Masquerade, The 1850s paintings Paintings in the collection of the Walters Art Museum Paintings by Jean-Léon Gérôme Paintings about death Dueling