Exhibition labels & didactics - National Gallery of Victoria

FRANCE
M. and Mme. Darbouville in the
Luxembourg Prison
M. et Mme Darbouville
14 March 1794
watercolour and gouache on ivory; tortoiseshell, copper
Versailles, musée Lambinet
Charles Vatel Bequest, 1883 inv. 788
The skills of imprisoned artists were prized
by fellow prisoners. In this unusual context
a new and poignant genre of art object
emerged, the ‘consolation’ or ‘victim’ portrait,
commissioned by detainees in anticipation
of their own deaths, to pass on to loved ones.
These miniature portraits depict a former
noble, Gaspard Louis du Chambon, Marquis
d’Arbouville, and his wife, Félicité-Sophie
Fretau. Detained at the Luxembourg Prison
in Paris on 27 February 1794, the couple
were sentenced to death three months later.
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