From 1804 To 1818

The art history of the 19th century is marked by a number of important trends, including the rise of Romanticism, the development of Realism, and the growth of the avant-garde. This period saw a number of important artists, including Eugène Delacroix, J.M.W. Turner, Gustave Courbet, and Édouard Manet.

Joseph-Antoine Moltedo (born 1775)

    This painting is a portrait of Corsican by birth, Moltedo, who was an enterprising businessman and inventor, agent to the French clergy at the Vatican, and director of the Roman post office from 1803 until 1814.
    The painting was painted during one of the most productive periods of Ingres's nascent career, and belongs to a series of commissions he received from French officials in Napoleonic Rome.
    They are distinguished by the inclusion of Roman views as backdrops - in this case the Appian Way and the Colosseum - as well as by stormy gray skies, a Romantic conceit that serves as a foil to the calm and secure expressions of the men portrayed.

Perseus with the Head of Medusa

    This Perseus, purchased by Countess Valeria Tarnowska of Poland, is a replica of Canova's famed marble of Perseus in the Vatican, conceived about 1790 and first shown in 1801.
    Based freely on the Apollo Belvedere, which had been carried off to Paris under Napoleon, it was bought by Pope Pius VII and placed upon the pedestal where the Apollo had formerly stood.
    In the Museum's version, Canova has refined the ornamental details and aimed for a more lyrical effect than in the Vatican Perseus, a stylistic streamlining characteristic of his artistic process.
    This Perseus, purchased by Countess Valeria Tarnowska of Poland, is a replica of Canova's famed marble of Perseus in the Vatican, conceived about 1790 and first shown in 1801.
    Based freely on the Apollo Belvedere, which had been carried off to Paris under Napoleon, it was bought by Pope Pius VII and placed upon the pedestal where the Apollo had formerly stood.

Plate (from the "Vues Diverses" service)

    The painting illustrates a combat near the ruined tombs of Baalbek in the mountains of Syria.
    The scene was adapted by Le Bel from a drawing by the peripatetic Louis-Francois Cassas (1756 - 1827), whose travels took him from northern Europe to Istria, Constantinople, Asia Minor, and Egypt.
    Casas spent nearly a month in Baalbek in 1785, and his views were etched and engraved for his "Voyage Pittoresque de la Syrie," published in 1799.
    Our plate comes from a set of "views diverses "and is one of only two in the series to depict a scene outside France.
    The service was begun during the Napoleonic period but was completed in 1816, when it was delivered to Louis XVIII.

Waterfall at Mont-Dore

    This painting depicts a waterfall in the Auvergne, although it was painted in Italy.
    It embodies the vigorous naturalist aesthetic that distinguishes Michallon's achievement from much of the tepid Neoclassicism of the early nineteenth century.

The Public Viewing David’s "Coronation" at the Louvre

    David's painting of Napoleon crowning his wife as Empress Josephine was shown on three occasions at the Musée du Louvre between 1808 and 1810.
    These public spectacles were highly political, celebratory endorsements of Napoleon's audacious claim to power in 1804.

Fortified Wall, Italy

    The walls depicted here are thought to date to antiquity and, together with the terrain, suggest the vicinity of Rome.
    The directness of observation and the fact that it was painted largely wet-into-wet indicate that this work was the product of a single plein-air outing.
    Although the site remains unidentified, it also appears in another oil study in the Museum's collection, one attributed to Pierre Henri de Valenciennes or a painter in his circle (2009.400.112).

Léon Pallière (1787–1820) in His Room at the Villa Medici, Rome

    Pallière and Alaux received the Prix de Rome for history painting in 1812 and 1815, respectively.
    As a young pensionnaire (resident) at the Villa Medici, seat of the French Academy in Rome, Alaux painted a group of portraits of fellow laureates in their private rooms.
    Both the intimacy of the scene and its subject - an artist in his studio - capture the emerging Romantic sensibility.

Ignacio Garcini y Queralt (1752–1825), Brigadier of Engineers