Pictures from 'Les Cardinales' - antiques on the Grande Rue, Richelieu

A group of four children playing on a stile
(200x300mm)
Unnamed artist with original frame

A pair of picture frames!

The picture was bought for 290 euros at
Les Cardinales 12 Grande Rue 37120 Richelieu

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Another blu-sky autumn view

 

thanks Ali K-B

The statue at the entrance to the parc & the restored Dôme in autumn.

Statue of the Cardinal-Duc by Ramey, formerly on the Pont Louis XVI in Paris

 

An autumnal view of the 'Dôme'; last remnant of the former château de Richelieu.

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PHILIPPE DE CHAMPAIGNE (1602-75) - Armand, Cardinal Richelieu (1585-1642) c.1625-42 RCIN 404757

This 'official' portrait of the Cardinal de Richelieu by Philippe de Champaigne is in the Royal Collection, in the Queen's Gallery, Buckingham Palace, London

Though not acquired by George IV, this formidable portrait of Cardinal Richelieu, Chief Minister to Louis XIII and effective ruler of France, was hung by him at St James’s Palace. This is typical of King George IV’s interest in French history as well as French art and design.

First recorded in the collection of Queen Anne in 1705.

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Portraits of the Cardinal in London

The National Gallery, London

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Saint Anne teaches the young Virgin to read

The statue has been restored, particularly the support stone that was formerly fractured and decaying.

BRAVO!

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Saint Anne teaches young Mary to read

When the Ideal Town was built in the 1630s, the external girdling walls, the entry gates and the vehicle carriageways themselves were constructed at the Crown's expense.

Louis XIII and Anne d'Autriche, King and Queen of France and Navarre.

The Cardinal also sought to have his new town's children well educated by the Sisters, so he founded nunneries that followed catholic teaching orders.  These convents he located on the western side of the town, furthest away from the little moated river Veude that runs past the town's eastern boundary. The prevailing wind blows the smoke of the town's chimneys, away from the children at school, over the roofs to the east.  The western side of the town still accommodates these schoolchildren today.

The street that accommodated these schooling premises, as well as the church's presbytery, came to be called rue Sainte Anne. Saint Anne was the mother of the Virgin Mary, and in a sense the grandmother of Jesus. In renaissance religious art she is typically shown teaching Mary to read. Just as the Sisters were doing to their charges in the adjacent buildings...

On one of the houses of 'rue Sainte Anne' - at the town's midpoint - there is a statue of Anne and Mary at lessons. It is in a sad state, but restoration has now commenced.

King Louis must have been flattered by the Queen Anne/Saint Anne allusion!

the dedicatee!

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A weekend course on engraving, given by Cyr Boitard

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Weekend courses on print making,

given at the Teinturerie, rue des Écluses, 37120 Richelieu,

i - 12 and 13 May 2018

ii - 9 and 10 June 2018

iii - 25 and 26 August 2018

lateinturerie.richelieu@gmail.com

Louis XIII - our King of France

Portraits of Louis XIII at the Musée Carnavalet, Paris

Portrait of Louis XIII, King of France (1610-1643)
Philippe de Champaigne, about 1640

Department of Paintings of the Carnavalet Museum – History of Paris

You can currently discover this painting at the Musée du Luxembourg during the exhibition “Rubens, royal portraits” until the 14th of January 2018.

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Dying slaves

the Dying Slave blushes

 The Montmorency family became involved in one of the conspiracies against the régime of the cardinal duc led by the king's brother Gaston d'Orleans.  Henri II de Montmorency, Marshall of France and scion of the family, was a proven conspirator who finally went to the scaffold on the orders of Armand-Jean and Louis XIII; Richelieu had survived the plot!

In order to protect other members of the old aristocratic family, the surviving Montmorencys decided to make a peace offering to the all powerful cardinal duc on the understanding that the executions and retributions would cease with this single awful walk to the scaffold.  They knew well that the cardinal liked a good statue as he had bought many, both ancient and contemporary, to decorate his new château in Poictou. As they had sometime previously acquired the two 'Dying Slaves', famous 1513 sculptures by Michelangelo Buonarroti, they hoped that they could appease Richelieu by offering them to him as a gift.  The great man accepted them gracefully and placed the pair on the façade on his new castle, one on each side of his Grand Stair's block at first floor level.

Visitors might be reminded of their host's power and glory as they approached an audience with the First Minster of France.

Beauty and Threat in a single gesture...

In the Dôme in the Parc de Richelieu is a plaster cast of one of these famous statues; the original now re-located (after the Revolution) to the Louvre.

back to normal

Henri II de Montmorency

Origin of the slave statues

"The slaves were designed as part of the initial project for the Pope's tomb (in 1505), and Michelangelo began to carve them in 1513 when a second project was developed. A fourth, less grandiose project, elaborated after the pope's death, saw them rejected for financial reasons. Julius II, who had dreamed of a freestanding mausoleum at Saint Peter's in Rome, was buried in San Pietro in Vincoli in a wall tomb, albeit one adorned with Michelangelo's famous Moses (a contemporary of the Slaves). Despite being unfinished, the two great marbles were already admired. Michelangelo donated them to the Florentine exile Roberto Strozzi, who presented them to the French king.

The Slaves thus reached France during the sculptor's lifetime, and first occupied two niches at the Château d'Ecouen (constructed by the constable, Anne de Montmorency) before Cardinal de Richelieu took them to his new château in Poitou. The two Slaves had originally been intended to feature on the pope's tomb alongside similar figures, including the four marble Slaves in the Academy of Florence, carved (and also left incomplete) in 1531–32."

in the Louvre

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Villa Medici - The French School in Rome in a fantasy by Claude Gellée called 'Lorrain'

Seventeenth century taste exemplified by Claude Lorrain's fantasy picture that sets the Villa Medici (the current location of the French School in Rome) on some distant classical shore.

At sunset.

JMW Turner - where are you?

 now in the Uffizi Gallery Florence

Painted by Claude in 1637 while the château and town of Richelieu were actually being constructed...

hommage à

Annick L

créature du cardinal duc!

villa medici today

One of JMW's many ripostes to Claud

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Atelier Maison opens...

 Park Ki Ho

Ce qu’on laisse

après nous…

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What we leave behind us...
(or 'That which one leaves after us')

 Vernissage - samedi 9 juillet 2016 de 18h à 20h
 Exposition overt du mardi au dimanche de14h-18h - 9 juillet au 23 juillet 2016

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 Opening reception - Saturday 9th July 2016, from 6pm-8pm

 Open hours 2pm-6pm - Tuesday to Sunday - 9th July till 23rd July 2016

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Atelier Maison

24 place Louis XIII   37120 Richelieu
02 47 97 33 63

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Cardinal Jules Mazarin; Richelieu's designated successor as First Minister to Queen Anne of Austria and the young Louis XIV

Cardinal Mazarin in 1657
 painted by Pieter van Mol
and subsequently engraved by Robert Nanteuil


Robert Nanteuil

Pieter van Mol

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Villandry and Alan Halliday -

A reception was held yesterday at the Château de Villandry where the paintings of Alan Halliday we exhibited. The subjects were mainly inspired by the people, gardens and architecture of Touraine. Villandry lies about 15 miles from the cité idéale of Richelieu. 

Asserted by some as 'the most beautiful garden in the world'!

CLICK HERE

for more on Alan Halliday and Camburn Fine Art

The Abbé Henri took a stroll afterwards in the famous garden and took these snaps from the gravel terrace walk.

He was struck by the distant garden pavilion

but in some ways his favourite part was the empty 'minerale' parterre below...

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Alan Halliday's exhibition at Villandry

CLICK BELOW

http://www.camburnfineart.com/index.cfm?page=Collection&cat=7628

CLICK BELOW FOR INFORMATION ABOUT ALAN HALLIDAY

http://www.camburnfineart.com/index.cfm?page=Biography&cat=6197&artist=Alan%20Halliday

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The cartouche by Tassin on a 28" square wall panel

While the Abbé Henri-Armand Proust lies in winter cold in the cemetery outside the walls of the cité idéale, he seems nonetheless to be keeping abreast with the latest in information technology and home decor.

He scanned his new copy of the Tassin plan of the town (engraved in 1630) in high definition (1200 pixels/inch) and used Photoshop to clean up around the cartouche. The original cartouche graphic itself is only about two inches square.  

Then he made a dense jpg file.  He then sent this off to a company who can print digital files onto canvas and mount the result on timber stretchers. They did a grand job!

Here below the rather elegant results.

Do any of his parishoners want a similar panel for themselves? -  the Abbé can easily order more - maybe in support of the Fonds de Dotation and the imminent restoration of the so-called Tour Sainte Anne….

mail the Abbé

the canvas wall panel

Other posts on M Tassin and his engravings

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Henri P's new friend in Madrid - Chantal

http://cielbleudecastille.blogspot.co.uk

Inspired by this blog above, the old Abbé Henri Proust has made a short trip to the National Gallery in London to post about all those lovely canvases on subjects close to the passions of his new friend Chantal.

Chantal herself  is actually a daughter of the Cité Ideale and has taken her native affection for the seventeenth century to the city that was never far from the political concerns of Armand-Jean himself,
MADRID.

the Hapsburg coat-of-arms

Maybe she can find some imagery of cardinal duc's opposite number in Madrid
 in the court of Phillip IV, The Count of Olivares…..'el conde-duque'

Olivares by Velázquez

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Meanwhile three royal courts; three court painters

• Philippe de Champaigne - for Louis XIII of France and Navarre

Triple portrait produced for the Roman sculptor Bernini to inform the making of his marble bust of Armand Jean

• Diego Velázquez - for Phillip IV of Spain

by son-in-law Juan Bautista Martínez del Mazo

• Anthony Van Dyke - for Charles 1st of England

"…..his eyes follow you round the room."

(Both boys were later killed in the English civil war, on the Royalist side)

• And finally, the good Abbé's favourite son of France, Nicholas Poussin

An unusual un-faded canvas by Poussin showing his original coloration