execution of maximilian

8/14/2019 Execution of Maximilian

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A New Source for Manet's 'Execution of Maximilian'Author(s): Lee JohnsonReviewed work(s):Source: The Burlington Magazine, Vol. 119, No. 893 (Aug., 1977), pp. 560+562-564Published by: The Burlington Magazine Publications Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/878834.

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PIERRE LEGROS AND THE R6LE OF SCULPTORS AS DESIGNERS IN LATE BAROQUE ROMEassociated the colonnade cardinal-bishopwith April I703,payments for the cardinal-bishopSt Bonaventure,paymentsmade to the sculptorPaolo Campi.25The well-modelled Metropolitan bozzetto,with its finelytextured surface, makes a considerably better impressionthan the travertinefigure. The sculptorpaid for the traver-tine, Paolo Campi, was fairly young in 1703 as he was onlymentioned a year earlier winning a not-so-distinguishedthird prize in the first-class sculpture competition of theConcorso Clementino.26 Despite a respectable career, henever distinguishedhimself as an outstanding artist. Campiworked for Legrosin 1712 when they were both recorded atMontecassino,27but he must have been with Legros earlier,as the committee for the Lateran Apostle commission re-quested Legros s permission to send Campi to Carrara inI707 to negotiate with the marble merchants there, pre-sumably as Campi was a native of that region.28 Campihelped Legros in the Monte di Pieta commission, too, asseveral payments are signed by Legros and given over to

Campi in 1705.-29With Campi clearly assisting Legros in 1705 or earlier,one is inclined to examine the Metropolitan model againin light of this greater sculptor. Comparing the figure toLegros s 1702 TheArtspayinghomageo Clement I (Fig.38),the similarityof the draperyand of details such as the fringeand the treatment of the eyes are all notable. When thefigure of Minerva, to the right of the Pope, is compared tothe bishop, the connection is clear. This terra-cotta wasexecuted by Pierre Legros as a model for his assistantCampi to use in carving the St Bonaventure. houghCampi could have received the commissionhimself and thenasked Legros for help, it is more likely that Legros had thecommission first and in the busy year of 1702 gave it toCampi to execute. This seems to be the first identifiableeighteenth-centuryRoman terra-cotta made as a model byone sculptor for use by another and it follows the well-known practice of Bernini in his workshop.These two commissions,the Tobitand Gabel elief and theSt Bonaventure,re comparativelyminor in the fabric of latebaroque sculpture, but they do indicate how sculpturalprojectscould be initiated and executed in the smallerpapaland private commissions of early eighteenth-centuryRome.Carlo Maratti and Carlo Fontana did execute designs formonumental sculpture at this time, but we must rememberto keep their contributions n perspective,for sculptors n hisperiod were known and respected members of the Romanartisticcommunityand mostof the time they did designtheirown work. As Legros seems never to have executed to thedesign of others, as Maratti and Fontana designed sculpturemostly for official papal commissions,as architects usuallydesignedsculpture n conjunctionwith sculptors hemselvesand paintersrarelyin any capacity - we must be carefulnotto overemphasize any information that might lead to theassumption that the works of late baroque sculptors weredictated by architects and painters. Certainly the status ofsculpture in relation to the other arts is still a questionrequiring further study for the seventeenth and eighteenthcenturies,but however this is resolved, I believe we can usethe example of Legrostojustify giving the better eighteenth-century Roman sculptors the respect due any artist whodesigns as well as executes his work.

14 The terra-cotta was first published by Brinckmann in 1923 as a bozzettobyBernini for the figure of St Augustine on the Cathedra in St Peter s (A. E.BRINCKMANN:Barock-Bozzetti,Frankfurt [1923], vol. I, pp.xoo-ox). ProfessorLavin s unpublished information is on file at the Metropolitan Museum (acc.No. 63.I68). I thank him for his generosity in allowing me to publish hisinformation along with the various citations he collected from the Archiviodella Reverenda Fabbrica di S. Pietro.25 AFP, Giornale al 1697 a tt.o li 8 Ottobre1707, Serie Armadi, vol. 397, f. 227.The figure had previously been identified as the S. Andrea Corsini sculpted byFrancesco Marchionni, an identification based on a list of the statues compiledin 1918 (CHRISTINE SOLVEIGS: A L Ombrede la Coupolede St Pierre de Rome,Grottaferrata [1918]). Through iconographic analysis and comparison with apartial list prepared in the late eighteenth century by Pietro Bombelli, AndreasHaus has recently cited some mistakes in this 1918 compilation (Der Petersplatzin Rom und sein Statuenschmuck,issertation, Universitit Freiburg [1970],pp.28-30). One can now add this statue to the misidentified works, foralthough a bishop, S. Andrea Corsini was not a cardinal and could not havebeen the saint sculpted here.26 GIUSEPPE GHEZZI: Le buone rti sempreii gloriosenelCampidoglio, ome [170o4],p.63. For Campi see R. ENGGAss: Paolo Campi: An Introduction , HortusImaginum:Essaysin WesternArt, Lawrence, Kansas [1974], pp.185-92.27 A. CARAVITA: I Codici le Arti a MonteCassino,Monte Cassino [1870o],vol. III,pp.502-04.28 Archivio Capitolare Lateranense, Giustificazionedelle Statue e Pitture inS. Giovanni n Laterano al anno 1704 a tt. l anno1714, No. 93. Jennifer Montaguinforms me that Campi seems to have continued this lucrative association withthe Carrara merchants for a few years later he provided the marble for Maini stomb of Innocent X in S. Agnese.29ACR, vol. 395, MandatiSped: pagati dal S. Monte di Pieta dal 1702 al 17o5,No. 410, 18th March 1705; No. 426, 5th May 1705.

LEE JOHNSONe w o u r c e o r M a n e t s Execution o Maximilian

IT has been persuasively argued, on the strength of visualcomparisons,that Manet took elements from contemporaryprints published in L Illustration hen he painted the Battleof theKearsage ndAlabaman 1864 and the Boston e bauchefthe Executionf Maximiliann 1867, which is agreed by all tobe the first of the severalversions.1In the latter, the figureof

a Mexican soldierstanding on the right wearing a sombrerohas been shown to derive from an engravingof a drawing bya French officer called Girardin of the battle of Jiquilpamin Mexico, publishedin L Illustrationn February I865.It is generallyaccepted that beforehe could have had anyprecise details of the execution, reporting the close range ofthe firing-squad for example, Manet must have turned toGoya s Executionsf 3rd May I8o8 for a model,2 and everyThe comparisons are made and illustrated by N. G. SANDBLAD: anet, ThreeStudies n Artistic Conception, und [1954], pp.131 and i79 note 29, p.125-26,Fig.35 and 36, 38 and 39. 2Cf. ibid., p.122-23.560

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39. The Execution of Maximilian, by Edouard Manet. 1867 68. Canvas, 252 by 305 cm. (Stidtische Kunsthalle, Maunmhcim).

40. The Execution of Butren, by C. Maurano after Lieut. Jules Brunet. 1863.Engraving, 22 4 by 31-8 cin. (subject.) 41. Th/e Ercclionof MAaximilian,by Edouard Mainet. 1867? Lithograph,335 by 43-7 cm. (subject.)



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A NEW SOURCE FOR MANET S EXECUTION OF MAXIMILIANundergraduate can rehearse the analogies and differencesbetween the Goya and Manet s definitive version at Mann-heim (Fig.39). As more detailed accounts reached Paris,mentioning, for instance, a wall a hauteur d appui withspectators behind it, so Manet, it is thought, modified hispicture in order to make it correspondmore closely to thefacts. While it was known from a contemporary source,Duret, that French soldiers posed for the firing-squadseenin the final version of Manet s picture, Sandblad held it tobe extremely improbable that without access to a photo-graph of the squad that eventually reached France, Manetwould have taken it into his head to let the soldierschangeuniforms (from the native costume worn in the Bostonversion).3 The photograph portrayed seven enlisted menand an officer all wearing French-type uniforms. YetSandblad had to concede: the existence of this photographmerely advances the inquiry into the questionof the changeof uniform, but does not settle it once and for all, since theFrench and the Mexican uniforms are not identical. How-ever eagerly the Mexicans may have wished it, they havenot become genuine French Chasseursa pied as Manet ssoldiersare. 4There is also the difficultythat the sergeantonthe far right of Manet s painting sports an imperial beardand moustache, unlike any member of the actual Mexicanfiring-squad- a variation which Scharf ingeniously but in-conclusively attributed to Manet s use of a photograph ofGeneral PorfirioDiaz, who was not at the execution, for thefeatures of the sergeant.5Nor does the recent article by Albert Boime help withthese and other directly related problems. Densely docu-mented and of wide perspective, it contains, among manystimulating ideas, the suggestion that an account of theexecution illustrated with an anonymouswood engravinginthe American periodical, Harper sWeekly,was a major in-fluence on Manet. Though undeniably interesting, theHarper s llustration does not show the members of thefiring-squad wearing belts and scabbards or imperialwhiskers, and instead of gaiters they wear sandals; onemember wears a sombrero, another a sun-helmet. Nor arethe soldiers with guns levelled arranged in two rows. Theyare spaced very differentlyfrom Manet s, in a serriedrank,and the diagonal they form is the other way round. Nospectatorslook over the wall,which does not run parallel tothe picture plane as in Manet s painting at Mannheim. Itmay also be added that the Harper sext states, and the illus-tration concords: A platoon of five soldiers advanced whenall was ready, and levelling their weapons, fired at the fatalword, and the three fell to the earth dead. 7 In none ofManet s versions does the firing-squad consist of five men(and, of course, it is well known that Maximilian did notdrop dead.) With the possible exception of the structure of

the wall, thereappears,in short, to be no reason for thinkingManet saw the Harper s rint.It is the object of this note to presentas a likely sourceofManet s final conception anotherillustrationfrom a popularFrench paper, an engraving which, in common with thatproposed by Sandblad as a source for a single figure in theBoston picture, was taken from a drawing by a Frenchofficer with the expeditionary force in Mexico (Fig.4o). Itstands out from all the sourcessuggestedto date, except theGoya, in its quality as a work of art. Though it would beabsurd to pretend that it belongs in the same class as theExecutionsf 3rd May, it neverthelesshas characteristics hatcould have been more appealing to the French painter,displaying as it does the sort of combination, often asso-ciated with Manet, of a detached treatment of a dramaticsubject with a nice feeling for the abstract shapes of inani-mate objects. In this impassive vision of death by gunfire,perhapsnatural in the lieutenant of artillerywho made thedrawing, Manet may have found exactly the tone that hewas seeking in reaction against Goya s type of expression.Like Manet s final version, the print depicts an execution inMexico by a firing-squadat shortrangewearingthe uniformof French Chasseurspied.It was engravedby Mauranoaftera drawing by Lieutenant Brunetof the execution of IgnacioButr6n, a self-styledgeneral and bandit chief who had puthimself and his men at the service of the French, but con-tinued, while in their pay, to commit highway robberyandmurder, now in the name of the Intervention, until theFrench grew so angry they arrested, court-martialled andshot him. He was executed in the citadel of Mexico Cityby members of the 2oth Battalion of Chasseurs.The illus-tration was published in Le Monde llustrifor 3rd October1863, with a brief commentary by Olivier de Jalin, en-titled ExpiditionduMexique.ExecutionduchefdebandeButrdn. 8There are disparities n detail between Manet sand Brunet sfiring-squad (slightly different swords or bayonets, lessgaiter showing in Manet, white instead of black belts), butthe similarities seem too marked to be fortuitous. If thefiring-squad n the print is far morenumerousthan Manet s,the spacing of the men, allowing for the thinning out of theranks, the lighting and the angle from which they are seenare extraordinarilyalike. Then there is the officerraisinghisswordin readiness to give the signal to fire, for whom thereis no satisfactoryequivalentin the pictorialsourcespreviouslyput forward. In those versions of Manet s Execution ofMaximilian where an officer appears, notably in the litho-graph (Fig.4I), he bears no resemblance to the Mexicanofficer in the photograph, either in feature or in the positionof his sword, but is like Brunet s officer in both respects.While Manet places his figure in a different position, theangle of the sword is the same and, as in the print, its tipis in line with the top of the wall over which spectatorswearing sombreros peer. A point that has not, to my know-ledge, been made before could be relevant here: in the

lIbid.,p.x31-32. The photograph is reproduced as Fig.4x. See also A. SCHARF:Art andPhotography, ondon [1968], pp.46-49 and Fig.41xon the subject of thisphotograph.4Ibid., p.132.5SCHARF, op.cit., pp.44-46, Fig.39 and 4o.6 New Light on Manet s Execution f Maximilian , The Art Quarterly,XXXVI[11973],pp.172-208.7Harper s Weekly,XI, No.554 [ioth August, x867], p.498.

sVol.XIII, p.2 18.Jalin does not mention that Butr6n (or Buitr6n, according tosome sources) and his band were on the French payroll, but for a short accountof his picaresque career, including this fact, see LT. COLONELLOIZILLON:Lettressur l Expiditiondu Mexiquepublilespar sa soeur, 862-1867, Paris [i89o],p.194.563



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A NEW SOURCE FOR MANET S EXECUTION OF MAXIMILIANthree versions with a raised sword (London, Copenhagenand the lithograph) the volley has already been fired,whereas in fact it is surely the drop of the sword that is thesignal to fire - the signal that Butr6n s executioners, drawnby a military man, dutifully await. Can it be assumed thatManet took the raised sword from the print, not fully com-prehending its meaning, then eliminated it from his finalcomposition because he came to realize there was a contra-diction between the smoking flint-locks and the position ofthe sword?A full assessment of the significance of this print in thedevelopment of Manet s composition will best be left toManet scholars, but I would suggest that, if it is accepted asa source for the Executionof Maximilian, as I believe it oughtto be on internal evidence, it raises the following questions,without radically disturbing the general pattern of evolutionworked out, with slight variations, by earlier writers, on thebasis of the dates when more or less accurate documentationbecame available to Manet. Is it necessary to believe thatGoya had so great an influence on Manet s final design aspreviously thought? Did Manet really use the photographof the firing-squad in determining his final version? Couldhe not, at an earlier stage than is usually supposed, takingthe print in Le Monde IllustrJ as a visual point of departureand the early rumours which reached Europe that thefiring-squad consisted of foreign soldiers, possibly French,German or American, as verbal authority,9 have elected torepresent the firing-party in French uniform and proceededto get French soldiers to pose for him without knowing ofthe existence of the photograph? If political motives andaesthetic intent - two reasons commonly advanced to ex-plain the choice of French uniform - no doubt played theirpart, could this not have been done largely because rumourallowed the choice and French soldiers were the modelsmost accessible to him? Finally, is there any need to believe,with Scharf that the head of the sergeant preparing todeal the coupdegrdcederives from a photograph of a hatlessGeneral Diaz or, with Sandblad, from a photograph of abeardless Mexican in the firing-squad,t10when his counter-part in Brunet s drawing, the officer standing farther backon the extreme right, is equipped with a natty imperial anda tilted kipi? Manet s sergeant also, incidentally, shares thedistinction of being without gaiters.Whatever the correct answers to these questions may be,they must be of secondary interest to that afforded by thevery existence of a print after an unknown amateur artist1twhich, were it not for its date, would seem to have beenstrongly influenced by Manet in theme, composition andstyle, instead of the reverse. And whatever political messageManet may have wished to convey in the Execution ofMaximilian, he could scarcely have failed to appreciate thepoetic justice of drawing a picture of the Emperor and hisgenerals being shot by soldiers indistinguishable from FrenchChasseurs rom one of a Mexican general being put to deathby unquestionably authentic Chasseurs.

9Cf. SANDBLAD,Op. it., p. I10--I .10o bid.,p.137.11Unknown to me, to Thieme-Becker and, presumably, to the readers of thisjournal, but could Manet have known him in person? It will be recalled that

Manet painted a portrait of a Mmine ranet in 1862, known as La Femmeaugant and La Parisiennede 1862 (reproduced in J. REWALD: he Historyof Im-pressionism,New York [1961 ed.], p.34). The sitter was not the wife of ourLieutenant Brunet whose service record preserved in the archives of theMinistry of War at Vincennes shows him to have married only in 1870, butshe may have been a member of the same family, possibly a sister-in-law. Thisdocument informs us further that he was born in 1838, served in Mexico fromAugust 1862 to June 1864, then apparently spent a few years in France, butwas on a military mission to Japan in August 1867 when Manet was engagedon the Maximilian;after serving as military attach6 to the French embassies inAustria and Italy, he ended up as a general on the general staff in 1891.

Shorter NoticesA rediscoveredpainting byCornelisvanHaarlemBY CHRISTOPHER BROWNIN Neil Maclaren s catalogue of the Dutch School paintings inthe National Gallery (published in I960), No.i893,1 a largepainting illustrating the sad fate of two followersof Cadmuswhowere devoured by a dragon,* is designated after Cornelis vanHaarlem . He notes that it corresponds almost exactly (butinverted) to a composition by Cornelisvan Haarlem known onlyfrom an engraving of 1588 by Hendrick Goltzius.3 Before theremoval of a layer of almost opaque varnish in 1952 the picturewas almost invisible; it is now clear that it is only an old copy.Maclaren s opinion has subsequently been questioned by Pro-fessorReznicek and Dr van Thiel, both of whom consider it to beoriginal,4 and in the National Gallery s Illustrated GeneralCatalogue (1973) it is tentatively stated that there are groundsto suppose it may be the original (see Fig.42).There are two other principal versions of the composition.5The one in Dresden (No.85IA; panel, 164.5 by 205 cm.) isin the same direction as the National Gallery painting, but offar poorer quality. The second, in Vienna (No.802; copper, 16by 22 cm.) is a reduced copy after the engraving,6 the directionI No.1893: oil on canvas (stuck on an oak panel), 581 by 77 in. (148.5 by195-5 cm.).2 OVID: Metamorphoses,ook III, lines 1-151 .3BARTSCH 62; F. W. H. HOLLSTEIN:Dutchand FlemishEtchings,EngravingsandWoodcuts,VIII, 104. It is inscribed in the lower left corner: HasceartisprimitiasCC[CCP in monogram] PictorInvent.,fsimulq.HGoltz. [HG in monogram] sculpt.D. lacob. Raeuwerdofsingulariicturaealumno,et chalcographiaefadmiratorimicitiaeergoD D. AO1588 and in the lower margin DirusAgenoridaeaniatsociaagminaSerpens,Ultor adestCadmuspaenasq eposcit bhoste.ForJacob Rauwart, see belownote 8. Pieter van Thiel discusses the inscription in his important articleCornelis Cornelisz as a Draughtsman , Master Drawings [1965], III, No.2,pp.123 ff, on p.i 26 and note 13. However, in stating that the inscription hadbeen previously overlooked he failed to take account of NEIL MACLAREN Sremarks in the National Gallery Dutch School Catalogue [i96o], p.82, note 2.*Professor E. K. J. Reznicek asserted that the painting was the original in1961 in the seventh thesis accompanying his dissertation, HendrickGoltziusalsZeichner(Utrecht [1961]). He mentioned it later in the Propylien volume(edited by Georg Kauffman) on Die Kunstdes i6. Jahrhunderts,Berlin [197o0],p.20oo, ill.83, and again in Honthorstiana , NederlandsKunsthistorischaarboek,23 [1972], p.174 and note 18. Pieter van Thiel, Keeper of Paintings at theRijksmuseum, has independently come to the same conclusion. His opinionis quoted by DR MAYER-MEINTSCHEL in her catalogue of the Netherlandishfifteenth and sixteenth-century paintings at Dresden [1966], p.27.5 A third is mentioned in the 1966 catalogue as having been in the K. K6hnerand Mansler von Markhof sale, Vienna, 8th March 1908, No.5 (Wood, 29 by40 cm.). Pieter van Thiel informs me that he noted it to be after the print.6 There are slight changes: there is a rock in place of the severed head in theforeground; Cadmus (in the background) is on horseback and the head of aman in the top left corner is omitted.

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