These works – five domes and two cul-de-fours – painted by the author of “The Coronation of Napoleon”, are receiving a welcome facelift more than 170 years after their creation.
Yaël Braun-Pivet is left breathless. Perhaps not as much as during the election night of June 9, when Emmanuel Macron announced the dissolution of the Assembly. But ultimately, Eugène Delacroix’s frescoes – “exceptional works by the author’s own admission,” says the director of the Palais-Bourbon library, Pierre Bosse – cannot have any other effect on their admirers. And as such, they deserve a restoration, the first since they were completed in 1847, almost ten years after the first sketches.
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It was necessary to wait for the large-scale work, begun in the library of the Assembly last winter, for the trifle of 4.5 million euros. The five domes that overlook it are decorated with it. The fiery red eyes, almost wild, of Attila’s horse facing Orpheus “who brings civilization to the Greeks”, says Pierre Bosse, when the former “tramples Italy and the arts underfoot” and “symbolizes the destruction of civilization”. The “risk of a return to the barbarian state in a perpetual recommencement”.
This treasure is currently in the hands of twenty-five restorers and nine gilders tasked with restoring its former glory. It is urgent. The wide and deep cracks that streak the domes threatened their very survival.
The starting signal for their rehabilitation, decided in 2019, was given in 2022 and actually completed two years later. These gems will be visible again in early 2025, as will the contents of the room, filled with old works, 80% of which date from the time of its construction in 1835.
“In normal times, the public can visit it and, if not, all the workers of the National Assembly and the deputies, says the occupant of the perch re-elected in July, despite the loss of her majority in the last legislative elections. There are, here, 700,000 works, archives and reports of our democracy. All the debates are recorded there. A major acquisition policy was conducted during the 20th century, such as the manuscript of the Tennis Court Oath, the judgment of Joan of Arc or the speeches of Victor Hugo.”
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Nuggets that the elected representatives of the new legislature will benefit from. Before a future dissolution?
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