Death Of The Prince De Talmont (La Mort Du Prince De Talmont)

Medium: Oil On Canvas
Size: 82 x 56 cm (32.3 x 22 in)
Size: Signed (l.r.): F. F. RICHARD / 1823

Provenance: Commissioned by Henriette-Louise, Princess of Talmont (widow of Antoine-Philippe de la Trémoille, Prince of Talmont, 2nd son of Jean de la Trémoille, Duke of Thouars, executed 29 Jan 1794) in a letter to Fleury-Richard dated 20 July 1822 (her acknowledgment of receipt of the painting dated 21 Oct 1823); possibly the painting sold in the Trémoille sale of 12 June 1926, lot 49 (this may otherwise be the version in Bourg-en-Bresse, of almost identical dimensions, commissioned 9 August 1822 by Marie-Virginie, Duchess and Princess of La Trémoille, Duchess of Thouars, sister-in-law of the Princess of Talmont). Private Collection.

This painting records the occasion of the death of the young Charles de la Trémoille, Prince of Talmont and Mortagne, mortally wounded while pursuing the enemy below the walls of Pavia after the battle of Marignano in 1515. The artist has recorded a probably fictional account of the wounded Prince, who supposedly found among the dead and dying by the priest-brothers of the great Carthusian monastery of Pavia, was brought within the security of their walls to die. Here the artist has used the oldest surviving Church in Lyons, that of Saint Martin d’Ainay, as the setting for the monastery.

The family of La Trémoille was among France’s most illustrious nobility, tracing its descent from Pierre, Seigneur de La Trémoille (in the County of Poitou), living in 1040. Guy IV de la Trémoille (died 1350) was Grand Pannetier de France and his son, Guy V, Count of Guynes (died 1397), was councilor & chamberlain of the King, bearer of the Oriflamme of France, and hereditary Grand Chamberlain of Burgundy, and further enlarged his wealth and position by his marriage of Marie, dame de Sully. He left two surviving sons, the younger of whom, Jean, was one of the first Knights of the Golden Fleece while the elder, Georges, who inherited the expanding family estates in 1416, married Jeanne, widow of John of France, duke of Berry, thus rising further in the hierarchy of the French court. Georges was made Grand Chamberlain of France but was captured at Agincourt in 1415; after his release he became first minister of the unfortunate Charles VII and played an important role in the life of Joan of Arc. His son Louis made an even better marriage in 1446, to Marguerite d’Amboise, younger sister of Françoise, duchess of Brittany and daughter and heiress of Louis, Viscount of Thouars and Prince of Talmont(d), and through her acquired the Amboise estates. Their heir, Louis II, Sire of La Trémoille, Viscount of Thouars, Prince of Talmont and Count of Guynes (etc), had a brilliant military career and served as French Ambassador to the Emperor Maximilian I and Pope Alexander VI, commanding the French armies in Italy only to die of his wounds before the walls of Pavia on 24 February 1524. His only son and heir, Charles, Prince of Talmont and Mortagne, Count of Taillebourg, Governor of Burgundy, a god-son of King Charles VIII, served with his father, but himself died from the wounds he received at Marignano on 13 September 1515, at the age of 29, regretted by the King and his court. He and his father were buried close by in the crypt of Notre-Dame de Thouars where they still lie.

This story of renaissance heroism struck an immediate chord with the artist and with his romantically inclined patrons – particularly the Duchess of Berry and her father-in-law the future King Charles X. Charles de la Trémoille had married another heiress at the age of fourteen, Louise de Coëtivy, heiress of the County of Taillebourg and the Principality of Mortagne-sur-Gironde, and left an only child, François (1505-1541). François, followed both his father and grandfather (whose estates he inherited) into a military career but died young; he too made an extraordinary marriage, to Anne de Laval, daughter of Charlotte of Aragon, Princess of Taranto, through whom the La Trémoille family claimed the throne of Naples (with some justice). The older son of this marriage, Louis III, was the first of the family to be elevated to ducal rank as Duke of Thouars in 1563, this Duchy being made a Duchy-Peerage in 1595.

Their husbands’ being directly descended from the subject of this work, the two Princesses each commissioned versions of the larger Death of the Prince of Talmont that Fleury-Richard painted for the Count of Artois and showed at the 1822 Paris Salon. Their letters to the artist are dated July and August, reflecting an immediate response to its Salon presentation. The painting repeats a compositional device that the artist employed several times, placing the principal figures in the middle ground with the whole scene lit through a door in the rear of the building - Fleury-Richard used a similar technique in Montaigne Visiting Tasso (Lyon, Mairie), La Vallière Carmelite (Moscow, Pushkin Museum), and Blanche Bazu & Pierre le Long (Dijon, Musée Magnin). The Princess de Talmont in her commission letter suggested that the proportion of the figures to the height of the building should be altered to enlarge the former. It is clear, however, from the second replica and the engraving after the first, that Richard decided against any change.

Richard followed his portrayal of the death of the young Prince de Talmont by the even more moving account of the return of the old Count of Guynes, Louis de la Trémoille, following the Battle of Marignano, to the family Château of Thouars. There the venerable hero is greeted by his ten year old grandson, to whom he tells the story of the heroic death of the boy’s father, while members of the household, including the boy’s grief-stricken mother, look on. The success of the earlier picture no doubt inspired the production of its sequel, as Richard records in his memoirs, and in his desire for historical veracity he used as a model for the painting of the widow a miniature from 1488 portraying her husband’s mother. This work was exhibited at the Salon of 1824 and was acquired on the 10 January 1825 by the royal household for the collection of the Duchess of Berry. Included in her sale in 1865 it was acquired by the Duke of La Trémoille and passed by succession to the present heir of the family, Prince Charles de Ligne de la Trémoille (see Chaudonneret, op, cit. supra, 1980, pp.84-85, cat. 51, fig

Sold to Stamford Museum of Art