(1750 Einsielden – 1834 Paris)
Portrait of Comte Lancelot Turpin de Crissé
(1716-1793)
Multicolored wax on cardboard-wood, presented in its original frame and protective case
30.5 x 24.5 cm
Framed : 47 x 39 cm
Signed lower left A. Couriguer Fecit
Circa 1785
In its original Louis XVI period frame
Inscribed on the back of the mounting: Me de Carandelet
A card glued to the back of the mounting bears the name of Madame France Denoyel, descendant of the Comte Turpin de Crissé
PROVENANCE: Remained in the family of the model until the death of Madame France Denoyel, in 1984; private collection in western France
The examples of works in multicolored wax that have come down to us intact are exceedingly rare. In the first place, the complexity of this delicate and spectacular technique limited the number of artists willing to try it. Then too, the relative fragility of the medium posed a problem for their conservation over the years—and now over the centuries
The large dimensions of our work in wax, composed on a background of cardboard-wood, was protected by a sealed, airtight case, probably not opened since the 18th century.
Seated at his work table, in a neoclassical décor of Vitruvian scrolls and fabric swags, we see Lancelot Turpin, Comte de Crissé and de Sauzay (1716-1793), head of one of the oldest families of French aristocracy.
A career military man, in 1734, he became the Commander of a regiment of hussars bearing his name, the Turpin Houzards. When he subsequently realized that he had a religious vocation, he withdrew to the Abbaye de la Trappe but, discouraged by the severity of the existence there, he returned to the army. He distinguished himself at the battles of Fontenoy and of Lawfeld. Seventeen campaigns and forty years of service earned him the Grand-Croix de l’Ordre de Saint-Louis. He emigrated during the French Revolution, becoming a General in Condé’s Army, dying in Vienna where Prince Esterhazy had given him refuge.
He was above all a military man, but was also a distinguished writer, first writing about the army as a profession, before turning his attention to philosophy, where he did not hesitate to criticize the abuses resulting from the buying and selling of commissions at the heart of the army. His Commentaires sur César, published in 1785, is echoed in the medallion, placed like a tutelary figure above his own face, in our work in wax.
Not satisfied with belonging to one of the oldest families in the kingdom, the Turpins also enjoyed a certain influence at court, where they received Honneurs in 1742. An additional mark of consideration was the king’s signature on the marriage contract of Henri-Roland-Lancelot (1754-1800). The elder son of our model, he was the father of Lancelot-Théodore (1782-1859), a celebrated landscape painter during the Restauration period.
This very cultivated family, whose collection included some very important works of art, was ruined by the French Revolution, and Lancelot-Théodore had to live for quite a while from only his work as an artist.
The Portrait of Louis XIV by the sculptor and painter Antoine Benoist (1632-1717) shows us a hyperrealist vision of the king, one with no concessions, the wax allowing a reconstitution of reality in its slightest details: the model’s expression, facial hair, and the texture of his skin.
Model of Mme du Barry’s bed for her apartments at the Château de Fontainebleau , made in a Parisian studio after the model by Jacques Gondouin (1737-1818), uses color and the malleability of the material to render the rococo frothiness of the fabric.
Ernest Meissonier (1815-1891) succeeded in recreating the detail of the musculature of the horse in Voyageur realistically and sensitively thanks to the properties of wax: working with it, he said, produced, “…immediate exhilaration in the creator.”
This material, then, along with terracotta, bronze and plaster, provided artists a great variety of possible uses. The rarity of the works surviving today make them all the more precious.
Biography:
Joseph Anton Kuriger (1750-1834), originally from Einsiedeln in German-speaking Switzerland, changed his name to Couriger to make it more French sounding. Member of a dynasty of wax sculptors and metalsmiths, in 1784 the Duc d’Orléans became his patron, and he developed a specialty of portraits, in medallion or in three dimensions, including those of the King and Queen of Naples, Joachim and Caroline Murat, done in collaboration with Guillaume Biennais (Château de Fontainebleau), and the Portrait of John Nash in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery in London
