How an artist who kept Napoleon's blood and Voltaire's tooth became the first director of the Louvre

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

It is striking to what extent fate was favorable to Dominique Denon. And the highest mercy from the rulers - moreover, who replaced and destroyed each other, and unique expeditions with the discovery of treasures of world culture, and the perpetuation of the name in the history of the largest museum in the world, and most importantly - the opportunity to do what you really love all your life, almost without looking back against other people's authorities - as far as it was generally possible in the conditions of the French revolutions and wars. The main things for Denon were his drawings and his love for art.

Nobleman, playwright, diplomat, collector

He was born into a poor noble family in Burgundy, it happened in 1747. Then the future artist and collector bore the name "Chevalier de Nons". At 16, he went to Paris to start his career. The first years in the capital, Denon studied the craft of a lawyer, but thanks to a variety of social circles he was able to plunge into the sphere for which he felt a special attraction - art and antiquity. In the shops of collectors and antique dealers, young Dominic already spent the lion's share of his free time.

At twenty-three, Denon wrote a comedy called "Julie, or the Good Father", the play was in the Parisian "Comedie Francaise" and enjoyed some success. Following her, a novel of erotic content was published - and, in addition to literary experiments in this bold genre, the Chevalier painted pictures similar in meaning, which, of course, enjoyed success at court. The mores of the French aristocrats of the second half of the eighteenth century were fully consistent with this trend in art.

Lightness of character, a sense of humor, the ability to get along with people and the gift of a storyteller, in addition to natural intelligence and talents, served Denon well. He was noticed and approached by King Louis XV himself, and under the royal favorite, the Marquis de Pompadour, art connoisseur Denon was engaged in the ancient carved stones of her Cabinet of medals. The catch phrase of the king, who did not like to bother himself with showing attention to a boring interlocutor, was "". Promotion was also not long in coming. In 1772, Vivant Denon went to work at the French Embassy in St. Petersburg. The young Frenchman was distinguished by Catherine II herself, however, due to a number of dubious tricks, several years later he was expelled from the Russian Empire. After Louis XVI's accession to the French throne, Denon was sent to Stockholm, and then to Italy. Life in Italy turned out to be the most suitable for Denon, he spent all his free time studying the masterpieces of the Renaissance, in search of the lost works of the great masters of the Baroque, on trips to destroyed ancient cities such as Pompeii and Herculaneum.

All this time, he improved his drawing skills, and also studied new, primarily engraving techniques. Having visited the philosopher Voltaire in his castle in the summer of 1775, he created a portrait of him entitled "Breakfast at Fern". After returning to Paris in 1787, Denon was admitted to the Royal Academy of Arts and Sculpture for his work "The Adoration of the Magi to the Savior."After Denon returned to Italy, where he lived in Venice, Florence, Bologna, traveled to Switzerland. There he was caught by the news of the revolution in his homeland.

Citizen Denon, costume designer, Egyptologist

For a nobleman, Paris in the early 1890s was a very inappropriate place. Denon learned that his name was included in the list of aristocrats to be destroyed or, at best, indefinite imprisonment. And yet Denon returned, changing the spelling of his last name in such a way as to get rid of the "de" particle. By the way, he disliked the name Dominic all his life, and therefore was called Vivan Denon.

Luck, however, turned to face the artist-diplomat. Denon was supported by Jacques-Louis David, the acclaimed artist of the Revolution. In fact, with the help of his influence, he saved him from the guillotine. Despite the fact that Denon's property was confiscated and he had to rent a small apartment on the outskirts of Paris, his business - compared to his former neighbors in secular salons - was doing well. David introduced his protégé to Robespierre himself, and also provided work to create sketches of a republican costume.

And Denon also painted the leaders of the revolution and those who appeared before the court and then went to the guillotine. Among them, ironically, in 1794, Robespierre himself was found, and Denon's hand created a drawing of his death mask, which, however, still causes controversy about the authenticity of the fact of its existence. And Jacques-Louis David, after the same Thermidorian coup, was thrown into prison.

And again Denon was safe and sound, and even gained popularity in the salon of Josephine de Beauharnais, who introduced the artist to the future emperor Napoleon Bonaparte. When in 1798 Bonaparte started his Egyptian campaign, he selected the commanders of his army with almost equal care and the scientists of this expedition. The journey to the birthplaces of human civilization was planned not only as a strategic operation to expand French influence, but also as a campaign for the cultural values of the country, which was only known to Europeans by hearsay at that time.

Denon was included in the expedition not only due to the fact that he was in good standing with Napoleon and Josephine, as they once did with Louis and the Marquise de Pompadour. His talent for searching and collecting historical materials and artistic treasures, together with an indomitable natural curiosity and passion, provided him with such an opportunity. Time has shown that Napoleon made the right decision. Denon painted constantly, in any conditions, sometimes directly under fire, during the battles of the French army with the Mamluks. The quality and accuracy of his drawings were excellent and surpassed those that came out of the pen of the historians of the expedition.

Together with General Deset, sent by Napoleon to pursue the Mamluk army, Denon went to Upper Egypt. He sketched a huge number of architectural monuments in all details - and when the Egyptian campaign of Napoleon was already, in fact, failed, and the British troops appropriated the antiquities collected by the French, it was Denon's drawings that saved scientists information about the hieroglyphs and pictograms of Ancient Egypt. Subsequently, they were used for decoding - the artist's works were so accurate. Thanks to Denon, images have survived of those ancient monuments that were later destroyed - for example, the temple of Amentotep III on the island of Elephantine, as well as drawings showing the state and appearance of other masterpieces, for example, the Great Sphinx, covered with sand more than half.

Baron, director of the Louvre, writer and art critic

All this made an invaluable contribution to science and culture, and Napoleon highly appreciated the merits of Denon: in 1802 he became the head of the new Museum of Napoleon, in the future - the Museum of the Louvre, which was filled with exhibits brought by the emperor from his military campaigns, primarily from Italy. At the same time, Denon published his book entitled "Journey to Lower and Upper Egypt", which became the starting point for European Egyptomania and gave development to the science of the study of Egypt - Egyptology.

In 1812, at the age of 65, Denon received the title of baron from Bonaparte as a token of his merits. The change of power in 1814 did not radically affect the fate and career of Denon; after the beginning of the Bourbon Restoration, he was asked to keep his post. And yet, a special closeness to the former emperor Napoleon made Denon's relationship with the authorities cool, and he resigned, making way for the director of the Louvre to his successor, Auguste de Forben.

Denon himself continued to fill his personal collection of art objects, and also began writing a book about the history of ancient and modern art. He continued this work until his death in 1825, it was published posthumously, with explanatory notes by the artist Amory Duval.

Among the items that make up Denon's collection was a reliquary, where he kept, in particular, Voltaire's tooth, a drop of Napoleon's blood, hairs from the mustache of Henry IV, a lock of General Desay's hair and other particles left over from historical persons. He himself was buried on the Pere Lachaise cemetery in Paris, thereby contributing to an increase in its popularity, at the beginning of the 19th century, rather modest.