Bedroom of the Heart of Voltaire
After Duche, 1781

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Chambre Du Coeur de Voltaire
detail
detail
Duche (after)
François Denis Née (1732-1817) (engraver)
Chambre Du Coeur de Voltaire [Bedroom of the Heart of Voltaire]
Black and white copperplate engraving
Paris: 1781
13 x 19 inches, sheet
10.5 x 16.5 inches, image
Sold, please inquire as to the availability of similar items.

18th-century engraving showing the portrait gallery and mausoleum known as the "Bedroom of the Heart of Voltaire." The room was in the chateau of the celebrated writer and philosopher Voltaire (1694-1778) on the edge of the town Ferney-Voltaire in Switzerland, where he spent the last 20 years of his life until his triumphant return to Paris in 1778. The chateau has been described as "the nerve center of Europe during the Enlightenment" due to the many 18th Century intellectuals who visited Voltaire there.

This print, made three years after Voltaire's death, shows a Louis XVI period room, with a bed in one corner and the walls covered with portraits. It was described in 1860 by French man of letters Emile Deschanel (1819-1904):

"In the display, which could have well been the dining room, there is, on a side, an enormous stove of earthenware, with half recessed in the wall and decorated with gilded ornaments, one of these stove-monuments as one sees sometimes in Switzerland and necessary due to the harshness of the climate during the long winters; on the other side a small marble cenotaph, in rather bad taste, built by the marquis of the Villette and intended to contain the heart of Voltaire, this heart agitated so much during its life, so tossed around after its death. This mausoleum carries two inscriptions:

'His spirit is everywhere and his heart is here'

The first half alone is true. Then below: 'My Mânes are comforted, since my heart is surrounded by you.'

In the bedroom, there remains a bed, upholstered out of silk pompadour, the remainder dismantled, without curtains and short-point; several portraits, between those of Frederick II and Catherine II, given to the philosopher-poet by the two sovereigns, his admirers; that of Lekain, that of Mrs. du Châtelet, finally that of Voltaire himself, an admirable pastel by de La Tour: his sharp eyes, the Gallic nose, not as narrow than one would not believe, a little sensual and a little large at the end, like that of Molière. It is truly Voltaire, so it appears, moreover it represents to us the contemporaries who went to see him in Ferney."

François Denis Née was a French printmaker.

References:

Iverson, Jack, ed. "Emile Deschanel, around 1860: A visit with Ferney about 1860." The Voltaire Society of America. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago ARTFL Project. August 1999. http://humanities.uchicago.edu/homes/VSA/Deschanel.html (23 April 2002).

Iverson, Jack, ed. "Voltaire's Château in Ferney." The Voltaire Society of America. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago ARTFL Project. August 1999. http://humanities.uchicago.edu/homes/VSA/description.html (23 April 2002).