Читать книгу The Romance of Madame Tussaud's - John Theodore Tussaud - Страница 9

LOUIS XVI AND THE DUKE OF ORLEANS

Specimens of the few existing examples of Curtius’s miniature work. Modeled from life shortly before the outbreak of the French Revolution.

The pity of the loss is that the work, taken direct from life, afforded a faithful record of important personages. Of this there is ample proof, and that the models should have been of so ephemeral a character is a matter of great regret, extending far beyond the feelings of the artists’ descendants. Yet, when one remembers the hatred of the populace towards the aristocrats and those holding authority under the Old Régime, it is not to be wondered at that many portraits should have shared, with their originals, the destructive effects of the antipathy that was shown both to patrons of art and to the art itself. It goes without saying that during the Reign of Terror people would be disposed to hide, or even to destroy, any art subject in their possession indicating their attachment to the Royalists.