Pierre-Louis DELAVAL (Paris 1790 - 1870) Portrait... Lot 18

Pierre-Louis DELAVAL (Paris 1790 - 1870) Portrait of Monsignor Roch Etienne de Vichy Bishop of Autun and peer of France On his original canvas Ottoz, damaged 64,5 x 54 cm Identified in the upper left corner M. le Cte de Vichy / Ev. D'Autun pair de France and signed and dated lower right P.L Delaval . 1827 Provenance : Manor of the Vichy family in Marcigny A pupil of Girodet, Pierre-Louis Delaval was commissioned in 1826 by the Count of Corbière, then Minister of the Interior, to paint a painting depicting the coronation of Charles X to decorate the Chamber of Deputies. Nine paintings had been commissioned from different artists to depict several episodes of the coronation, and it was Delaval's task to present the moment of the oath (see Normant, Tableau du serment de S. M. Charles X.: Exposé provisoirement le 14 déc. 1828 à l'Hôtel-de-Ville de Paris : Avec la gravure au trait, Paris, 1828, p. 3). The taking of the oath was one of the key moments of the 1825 ceremony. Although the coronation of Charles X did indeed take up the codes of the Ancien Régime monarchy that the revolutionaries had wished to abolish, it introduced a novelty with this oath on the Gospels, but also on the charter of 1814. Delaval represented this very moment. The painting, which has now disappeared, was for a time exhibited at the Paris City Hall. It was very large and had been the subject of numerous studies which depicted the important protagonists of the advent of the King. The bishop of Autun, the subject of our study, was in the foreground to the left of the altar of the cathedral of Rheims (see, op. cit., p. 8). (accidents and missing parts of the frame)