Price: $2,500.00
SKU: 99820
ARTIST: Charles Etienne Gaucher
MEDIUM: Copper plate engraving
DATE: 1782.
EDITION SIZE: Image size 9 7/8 x 11 1/4" (25.2x 28.5 cm)
DESCRIPTION: Sur le Thertre Francois, le 30 Mars 1778 apres la siaciene Represtation d I'rene.<br><br> The poet, philosopher, and playwright François-Marie Arouet, known universally as Voltaire, was one of the most influential figures of the 18th century. He was a linchpin of the French Enlightenment, so it often comes as a surprise to learn that he spent much of his career in Switzerland, in exile from France. This print, one of Gaucher's most important, captures a key moment from Voltaire’s triumphant return to Paris in the very last months of his life. Voltaire came back to the city in February 1778 to see the premiere of his last play, Irene. He fell ill during the voyage from Geneva and missed the premiere at the Comedie Francaise on March 16, but recovered enough to attend a performance later in the month. Moreau le Jeune and Gaucher capture the moment when the cast ceremonially crowns a bust of the playwright with a laurel wreath. The real Voltaire looks on from the loge at upper left, as the audience applauds.<br><br> The Benjamin Franklin connection.<br><br> On stage and in the lower right-hand corner is shown a portly gentleman who has a great likeness to, and several historians have suggested is none other than Benjamin Franklin. While it is not proven that Franklin was even at the event, it is known that the two had recently met and caused great excitement in the intellectual world of Paris.<br><br> On a Wednesday in April 1778, Benjamin Franklin, at that time a Minister Plenipotentiary to the newly formed United States of America, had dinner with John Adams, the commissioner and the future President of the United States, and both went afterward to hear a few papers read at the Academy of Sciences, the premier intellectual gathering in Paris. Benjamin Franklin was already famous throughout France for his discovery of the lightning rod and the electric properties of thunderstorms, in addition to his many literary and philosophical works and his staunch defense of his country’s new independence. Dubbed L’ambassador electrique, he moved among the social circles of Paris with much greater facility than Adams, whose stern republicanism was shocked at the frivolity the French mixed with the serious affairs of science and diplomacy.<br><br> Also attending the Academy of Sciences that night was Voltaire, a voluminous writer whose religious and political skepticism had made his life one litany of imprisonment in, and banishment from, his native France, but whose many sufferings had never stopped him writing, and served but to increase his fame and popular appeal. Now aged 83 and aware he had only a few months to live, and that the current climate was sympathetic to his opinions, he had broken a three-decade sentence of exile and returned to Paris. According to Adams’ account, the meeting began routinely enough, with D’Alembert, the president, reading eulogies on the recently deceased members of the Academy. But some of the crowd electrified at the presence of two living legends of the Enlightenment among them, began to demand that Franklin and Voltaire be introduced to one another. The two philosophers bowed formally and spoke to one another, but this was no satisfaction to anyone and served but to increase the clamor of the audience. <br><br> As Adams dryly notes:<br><br> Neither of our Philosophers seemed to divine what was wished or expected. They however took each other by the hand…. But this was not enough. The Clamour continued, untill the explanation came out “Il faut s’embrasser, a la francoise.” The two Aged Actors upon this great Theatre of Philosophy and frivolity then embraced each other by hugging one another in their Arms and kissing each others cheeks, and then the tumult subsided. (Thomas Tyrrell)<br><br> It is certainly possible that Goucher knowing of the recent history of these two extraordinary men included Franklin in the engraving.
ADDITIONAL INFO:
CONDITION: Good condition. B/W
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