Sophie de Luigné (French, active c. 1800-21)
Pair of Day Old Lion Cubs in the Ménagerie du Museum d’Histoire Naturelle (after Nicolas Maréchal, circa 1800
signed lower right, inscribed: 'Lions nés dans la Ménagerie du Muséum le 19 Brumaire an 9, représentés a l’âge d’un jour'
watercolour on vellum in original frame
32 x 40 cm
12 ½ x 15 ¾ in
12 ½ x 15 ¾ in
636a
Provenance
Private Collection, France
The original version of this composition was painted by Nicolas Maréchal (1753-1803) and is in the collection of The Musée National d’Histoire Naturelle in Paris (Portefeuille 71, folio 47). It...
The original version of this composition was painted by Nicolas Maréchal (1753-1803) and is in the collection of The Musée National d’Histoire Naturelle in Paris (Portefeuille 71, folio 47). It was executed as part of the project to illustrate La Ménagerie du Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle ou Description et Histoire des Animaux, organised by the authors of the book Bernard-Germain-Étienne Delaville Comte de Lacépède and the Baron Cuvier. Maréchal was one of small group of artists including the Dutch artist Gerard van Spaendonck (1746-1822) and Nicolas Huet (1770-1830) commissioned to document the animals living in the Museum menagerie in Paris. Amongst those drawings are a series of images of the lions and lion cubs; this striking image was painted when the cubs were one day old.
Sophie de Luigné, was an artist also working at the Natural History Museum at the same time. Biographical details are scant, but she is known to have contributed illustrations of botanical specimens, shells and herbs to the Annales du muséum national d’histoire naturelle between 1802-1813, and notably to the monumental two volume work by Ambrose-Marie-François-Joseph Palisot de Beauvois entitled Flore d'Oware et de Benin which was published between 1804-1821. Her adaption of Maréchal composition of the two lion cubs is almost identical apart from the ground which is covered with leaves in the original version.
The Maréchal images are discussed in detail in Katie Hornstein (ed) Myth and Menagerie: Seeing Lions in the Nineteenth Century published by Yale University Press in 2024. The Paris menagerie, founded in 1794, is amongst the first zoos in the modern sense that were established in Europe and it remains in operation in the present day. The lion cubs depicted in the present work are the offspring of a pair of lions, Marc and Constantine, and were born on the symbolically important date of the 1st of November 1800 - the anniversary of Napoleon's overthrow of the previous regime. The Emperor and Empress Josephine visited the cubs who were named Marengo, Jemmapes and Fleurus in honour of Napoleon's most recent victories at that point. With the symbolic and long standing associations of lions with royalty, this was a chance for Napoleon and the artistic circle around him to subvert the narrative and use the birth of these cubs, on such a convenient date, as part of his propaganda campaign.
Sophie de Luigné, was an artist also working at the Natural History Museum at the same time. Biographical details are scant, but she is known to have contributed illustrations of botanical specimens, shells and herbs to the Annales du muséum national d’histoire naturelle between 1802-1813, and notably to the monumental two volume work by Ambrose-Marie-François-Joseph Palisot de Beauvois entitled Flore d'Oware et de Benin which was published between 1804-1821. Her adaption of Maréchal composition of the two lion cubs is almost identical apart from the ground which is covered with leaves in the original version.
The Maréchal images are discussed in detail in Katie Hornstein (ed) Myth and Menagerie: Seeing Lions in the Nineteenth Century published by Yale University Press in 2024. The Paris menagerie, founded in 1794, is amongst the first zoos in the modern sense that were established in Europe and it remains in operation in the present day. The lion cubs depicted in the present work are the offspring of a pair of lions, Marc and Constantine, and were born on the symbolically important date of the 1st of November 1800 - the anniversary of Napoleon's overthrow of the previous regime. The Emperor and Empress Josephine visited the cubs who were named Marengo, Jemmapes and Fleurus in honour of Napoleon's most recent victories at that point. With the symbolic and long standing associations of lions with royalty, this was a chance for Napoleon and the artistic circle around him to subvert the narrative and use the birth of these cubs, on such a convenient date, as part of his propaganda campaign.