| Comment: |
Erroneously dated 1794, the true date of this allegorical composition appears in the top, right-hand corner: the year XV, in other words 1807. The date 1794, in the bottom left-hand corner, refers to the year and the day, 8 May, that Lavoisier was executed. In the other hand, Minerva is holding, as suggested by Hassenfratz, a pair of scales, which here refers both to justice and also to the real item used by Lavoisier in his laboratory. To the left of the medallion, we can see an angel bewailing the fate of the scientist, holding the frontispiece of the Traité élémentaire de chimie. A gasometer, the most significant instrument in the chemical revolution, stands just behind Minerva, and, in the centre, near the top of the composition, three angels are playing the lyre, lit up by the sun of a new dawn. On the columns at the sides of the picture, we can see medallions depicting four scientists: the physician and friend of Lavoisier’s Félix Vicq d’Azyr, who died in 1794, the surgeon Pierre Desault, who died in 1795, the astronomer Alexandre Guy Pingré, who died in 1796 and a fourth medallion without inscription. The gouache does not bear the artist’s name. |
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Hommage à LavoisierPrivate collection
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Iconography of Lavoisier
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