| Louis-Maurice Boutet de Monvel’s Joan of Arc Series celebrates the remarkable
life of the maiden who liberated the city of Orléans from siege in 1429
and turned the tide of the Hundred Years War between France and England. The
artist was born in Orléans, where the memory of the Maid of Orléans
has lived on for centuries.
Boutet de Monvel first turned to this subject when he wrote and illustrated
a children’s book on Joan of Arc’s life, published in French in 1896
and in English translation in 1918. The artist was inspired by images of the
,maid that he saw as child in Orléans and by a gilded statue of her by
Emmanuel Frémiet in Paris. The immense success of Boutet de Monvel’s
book won him international fame and two commissions. The first was for a cycle
of frescos in the Basilica of Domrémy in Joan’s home village.
The second commission, begun after 1903, was for six canvases depicting her
life
for William A. Clark, senator from Montana. . . .
- Nora M. Heimann, Assistant Professor of Art History
Catholic University of America, Washington, DC |
Text excerpted from A Capital Collection: Masterworks from
the Corcoran Gallery of Art.
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