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45. Eugène-Hippolyte Forest (1808-1891) Bâstard Foetus Hérédité, Comte D’Averton Mort-Né (Bastard Hereditary Fetus, Still-Born Count D’Averton)
Hand-colored lithograph, 1931, published in La Caricature, October 20, 1831, 290 x 255 mm., B. N. Inv. 5 (plate 102). Very fine impression with splendid coloring on thick wove paper (apart from the magazine edition) with good margins. The image is about as bizarre as they get and the text only magnifies that impression. While is it is sufficient to itself as a titled picture, what does it all mean? It is, in its strange way, a paean to end of the Bourbon monarchy in France. The last legitimate Bourbon King of France and Navarre was Charles X (1757-1836), who reigned until 1830, when he was forced from the throne. On August 9 of that year, Louis-Philippe, of the rival house of Bourbon-Orléans, had himself proclaimed “King of the French.” Forest has here imagined (?), and pictured, an illegitimate successor to Charles, born dead, and dressed like medieval royalty, the last of the Bourbons. |
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