Coriolanus Taking Leave of his Family

1786

Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson

Associated Names
Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson

Painter, French, 1767 - 1824

This is a painting featuring multiple people in an interior setting. To the left of the center, a bearded man stands, wearing a long red robe draped over a yellow shirt or tunic. His body faces us, but his head is turned to the right, where he gestures with one outstretched hand. In front of him, a crying child in a pale blue robe has his back to us and grabs the man's other wrist. The standing man is gesturing towards a seated woman the right, who has her head resting on one hand, a tear falling down her face and her eyes closed. She is wearing a white dress with a yellow shawl that drapes over her blonde hair and down her back. A naked crying child stands between her legs, clinging on to her arm. On the far right is a second seated woman who wears a red dress with a similar yellow shawl. This woman has dark brown hair, and she looks up towards the standing man from under furrowed brows. She, too, is crying. Her left arm rests on a table behind her which is draped with a blue cloth. On top of this table is an ornate silver helmet with a red interior and a large silver plume topped with red. On the far left, two men stand in front of a green curtain. One of them is turned away from the central man and has his head in his hands. He wears a blue robe. The other man has a dark beard, and he looks toward the central man, his brows furrowed and eyes wide. He wears a light purple tunic with an orange cloth over it. All of the people in the painting have pale skin. The ground beneath the people is made of rectangles of blue-gray stone, and the walls are light blue, with the plaster or paint chipped in places to reveal brown bricks. On the right, beyond the table with the helmet, there is an opening into another room. To the left of this opening is a short white column with a small reddish-brown statue of a wolf on it. In the upper left corner is an arched opening that leads outside, where another cluster of people is visible, along with white buildings, olive green trees, a tall gray mountain, and a cloudy sky in shades of yellow, orange, and pale purple.

Media Options

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Coriolanus, dressed in a red robe, stands at the center of this painting surrounded by his grieving family. The 5th-century BCE general was exiled from Rome after trying to strip the commoners of their recently won rights. Girodet paints Coriolanus’s farewell in a severe style that matches the general’s stoic attitude in the face of personal tragedy. Coriolanus later joined Rome’s enemies and nearly captured the city. Girodet was only 18 years old when he submitted this painting for the Grand Prix de Peinture, a prestigious French art prize awarded for depicting a significant moment from history or literature. Despite his strong entry, politics in the art world prevented Girodet from winning.

On View

West Building Main Floor, Gallery M56

Artwork overview

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

The artist's entry in the 1786 competition for the Prix de Rome.[1] possibly given by the artist to Antoine Laurent Lavoisier [1743-1794] and/or his wife, Mme Marie Anne Pierrette Paulze Lavoisier [1758-1836; after 1804, Comtesse de Rumford], Paris; seized 1794 by the French state; returned 1796 to Mme Lavoisier.[2] private collection, France, from at least the early 20th century; (sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, New York, 29 October 2019, no. 749); purchased by NGA.
[1] Girodet was one of seven finalists in the competition, and his painting is the only one known to have survived. The Prix de Rome exhibition did not take place that year, however, because none of the paintings were deemed worthy to receive the prize. Written in an 18th-century hand on a label on the reverse of the stretcher, which is original, is the following: "Les adieux de Coriolan à sa famille. Peint par Girodet en 1786. – Concours pour le grand prix qui ne fut donné à aucun des concurrents." ("The farewell of Coriolanus to his family. Painted by Girodet in 1786. Competition for the grand prize which was not given to any of the competitors."). There are also the remnants of a red wax seal on the top stretcher member, and on the reverse of the canvas, in the upper right, is a circular red wax seal on which can be read: ...CADE..• PARIS... REG • ...MARIA •...T... The seal on the canvas is that of the French Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture (Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture), which also depicts the head of Minerva.
[2] Lavoisier, the father of modern chemistry and biology, a director of the tobacco and gunpowder industries, a banker, an economist, and an early advocate of the French Revolution, was executed in May 1794 during the Revolution on charges stemming from his role in the Ferme générale (General Farm), a private company with sixty stockholders that was in charge of collecting indirect taxes for the king. Lavoisier's wife, who was also his scientific assistant, was a friend of Girodet. Following Lavoisier's execution, a 178 page inventory was made of his books, furniture, works of art, and scientific instruments, all of which were confiscated and turned over to the institutions of the State, and subsequently returned to Mme Lavoisier in 1796. See: Jean-Pierre Poirier, Lavoisier: Chemist, Biologist, Economist, translated by Rebecca Balinski, Philadelphia, 1996: 388-390, 462 n. 3. The original inventory of Lavoisier's belongings, "Inventaire après le décès du Cit. Antoine Laurent Lavoisier," is held by the Archives Nationales, Paris, Cote (Record Group) MC/ET/XCIX/754, and has been digitized: https://www.siv.archives-nationales.culture.gouv.fr/siv/rechercheconsultation/consultation/ir/consultationIR.action?irId=FRAN_IR_043056&udId=c1p73eoyb01n--1wma9hvcpd3sj&details=true&gotoArchivesNums=false&auSeinIR=true (accessed 19 August 2020; copy in NGA curatorial files). It is also available in the Lavoisier Manuscript Collection, Archives 4712, Series VIIIA, Box 49, Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Kroch Library, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York.

Associated Names

Bibliography

2001

  • Anne Lafont, Une jeunesse artistique sous la Révolution, Girodet avant 1800, Ph.D. dissertation, 2 vols., Paris-Sorbonne University (Paris IV), 2001, 1:242, no. 20, as unlocated.

2006

  • Bellenger, Sylvain, et al. Girodet, 1767-1824. Exh. cat. Musée du Louvre, Paris; Art Institute of Chicago; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Musée des Beaux-Arts de Montréal. Paris, 2006: 191, 200 nn. 40-43, as lost.

2021

  • Wile, Aaron. "Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson, Coriolanus Taking Leave of His Family." Art for the Nation no. 63 (Spring/Summer 2021): 18-19, fig. 18.

2023

  • Wile, Aaron. "Girodet's 'Coriolanus taking leave of his family' rediscovered." The Burlington Magazine 165 (October 2023): 1094-1105, repro..

  • Albertson, Gerrit. "Dans les loges: Anne-Louis Girodet's Coriolanus Taking Leave of His Family and the Grand Prix Contest." Daphne Barbour, ed., Facture. Conservation, Science, Art History 6 (2023): 90-119, repro.

Wikidata ID

Q108686573

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