Exhibition labels & didactics - National Gallery of Victoria

36
Jean-Jacques HAUER
French 1751–1829
Louis XVI farewelling his family,
20 January 1793
Les adieus de Louis XVI à sa famille,
20 janvier 1793
1794
oil on canvas
Musée Carnavalet – Histoire de Paris, France
Gift of Madame Bedeaux Charles, 1961 inv. P. 1988
On 10 August 1792 France’s fragile trial
period of constitutional monarchy ended
when an enraged mob stormed the Tuileries
Palace, murdering the King’s Swiss guards.
Three days later the royal family was
arrested and taken to the Temple Prison.
Having been kept in solitary confinement
for the final six weeks of his incarceration
here, on 20 January 1793 the King was
permitted to see his wife and family one
last time, on the night before his beheading.
This agonising scene was captured in this
contemporaneous painting by Jean-Jacques
Hauer.
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