The Return of Marcus Sextus (French: Le Retour de Marcus Sextus) is an oil on canvas history painting by the French artist Pierre-Narcisse Guérin, from 1799.[1][2][3]

History and description

It depicts the fictional Roman general Marcus Sextus, who had been banished during the rule of Sulla. After Sulla's fall, he returns home to Rome to discover his wife is dead. It was originally intended to feature the figure of Belisarius, but Guérin altered it. The painting shows Marcus Sextus in a gloomy room, in front of the bed where his dead wife is lying in bed, while he remains silent and still, heartbroken, holding one of her hands. Her daughter grabs his leg, in mourning. His wife lies, pale, in bed, with one of her breats exposed.[4]

It appears to have served as an allegory for the situation in the French Republic, following the Reign of Terror, with Sulla representing Maximilien Robespierre, and Marcus Sextus the French émigrés who were returning to the country under the more moderale rule of the Directorate.[5] The painting was exhibited at the Salon of 1799. Today it is in the collection of the Louvre, in Paris, having been acquired in 1830.[6]

Cultural references

Madame De Stäel wrote about this painting in her novel Delphine (1802).

References

  1. ^ Ives & Barker p.20
  2. ^ Fried p.105
  3. ^ Louvre (French)
  4. ^ Crow p.232
  5. ^ Crow p.232
  6. ^ https://pop.culture.gouv.fr/notice/joconde/000PE001388

Bibliography

  • Crow, Thomas. Emulation: David, Drouais, and Girodet in the Art of Revolutionary France. Yale University Press, 2006.
  • Fried, Michael. Manet's Modernism: Or, The Face of Painting in the 1860s. University of Chicago Press, 1996.
  • Ives, Colta Feller & Barker, Elizabeth E. Romanticism & the School of Nature. Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000.
Allikas: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Return_of_Marcus_Sextus
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