We're standing in a leafy park at the base of a statue with the family of Duchesse de Montebello. Every portrait tells a story. This great portrait by Baron Gerard tells a story of war and peace and specifically of a longing for peace.
The painter Gerard (a pupil of Jacques-Louis David) has posed the Montebello family in a leafy park standing at the base of a statue. Their group makes a kind of triangle in which the highest part is the mother, the Duchess. She is quietly beautiful in her simple yet elegant silk dress. A fabulous red cashmere scarf draped casually around her shoulders has brought the color accent and a hint of high Parisian fashion.
Her daughter, looking a bit older than her eight years, clings to her mother's side, while the four boys, all dressed in suits modeled on military uniforms, range in age from ten to thirteen. The family is missing their father. Jean Lannes, the first Duke of Montebello, was one of Napoleon's greatest generals. Jean Lannes was killed in battle in 1810, four years before his widow commissioned this portrait from Baron Gerard, the leading portraitist at the court. Gerard included the Duke's portrait symbolically in the form of a statue that is just glimpsed at the upper left side. It is towards him that his older son looks upward.
Jean Lannes made his fortune on the battlefield. He was born the son of a stables keeper, uneducated in school but immensely talented in the art of war. He rose through the ranks, fought in all of Napoleon's campaigns from Italy to Egypt to Austria. He received every honor and prize. He was made Marshal of France and Duc de Montebello in 1809, a title created for him after his great victory at the Battle of Montebello.
Napoleon said of Jean Lannes, "I found him a pygmy and left him a giant." It's an interesting figure of speech from the Little Emperor, who was only half as tall as his dear friend Lannes.
Jean Lannes the giant was mortally wounded by an Austrian cannonball, which we see painted at the foot of the statue. It is the symbol of his death, presented like the symbol of his martyrdom to the cause. His loving and devoted wife, the mother of five young children, kept her place at court (she was a favorite lady-in-waiting of Empress Louise) and was universally praised for her modesty and beauty. But the death of Jean Lannes changed everything. Not only the destinies of his wife and children, but also Napoleon's. Gerard's magnificent portrait makes its first impression for its great size. The portraits are almost life-sized, in fact. He has carefully and subtly grouped the family in a pyramidal form so that the very persons beneath the statue of the departed father and hero form the shape of a pyramid, a funerary monument, as a great token of homage to a lost hero.
After the loss of his devoted general, Napoleon's wars passed from defeat to defeat, from Russia to Waterloo. In 1814, the year this portrait was painted, Napoleon was sent into exile, and the Duchesse de Montebello quietly withdrew to her estate. The Duchesse chose to record the moment in this portrait and also to make a statement about her family's new life. Now they are far from the pomp and majesty of the imperial court that Gerard was famous for painting. They wear their military fortunes on their sleeves in the boys' suits, but the wars are over, a statue in a park. Now the mother must take charge and steer a safe course during the troubled years that would surely follow following the fall of their protector, Napoleon. She succeeded. The boys all grew up to distinguished careers in diplomacy and the army.
Gerard, who surpassed his former teacher Jacques-Louis David as the most fashionable portraitist of his day, captured this tender family group brilliantly. The tall figure of the mother dominates the pyramidal composition, the children grouped around her in a natural manner. The park of Maisons, vividly rendered, serves as a grandiose backdrop. Painted when Gerard was at the height of his powers and popularity, this work has all the hallmarks of his mature style: the highly finished surface, the brilliantly rendered textures, the classically balanced composition, and the subtle characterization of the sitters. Remarkable both for its grand scale and excellent condition, it is of impeccable provenance, having remained in the extended family of the sitters since its inception. This work stands out in Gerard's oeuvre as virtually unrivaled in size, scale and quality. No other museum in the US has a comparable work and even the Louvre cannot compete. Its acquisition would increase the importance of the MFAH's collection greatly.
As a footnote of specific interest to the Museum of Fine Arts, the young lad at lower left in the foreground, Ernest de Montebello, married and founded the family line of which Philippe de Montebello, a former director of this Museum, is descended.
