ATTRIBUTED TO Jean Jacques LE BARBIER (1738-1826) - Lot 51

ATTRIBUTED TO Jean Jacques LE BARBIER (1738-1826) The Declaration of the Rights of Man; Allegory in homage to Jean-Jacques Rousseau Pair of transposed canvases, one unframed. 114 x 88 cm. (Old restorations, lacks and lifts). The first canvas is a variant of the composition by Jean-Jacques Le Barbier in the Musée Carnavalet (inv. P708). Two allegorical female figures stand above a pedestal designed to hold the text of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, which has not yet been inscribed (this space was intended to hold the printed text, glued directly onto the canvas, as on the Musée Carnavalet copy). On the left, an allegory embodies the crowned Monarchy, freed from the chains of Tyranny. On the right, the genius of the Nation points with one hand to the future location of the text, while holding with the other the sceptre of Power oriented towards the eye of Providence in a radiating triangle. A lictor beam, surmounted by a Phrygian cap, separates the tables of the Declaration of Rights. In the center of the second composition, Minerva, the armed goddess of Reason, sits on a throne, the back of which is adorned with a beam and topped with a Phrygian cap. The goddess writes the Law on a tablet held by a winged genie, while a Renommée crowns her with laurels. At their feet, several symbolic elements appear: the scales of Justice, a globe bearing the inscription "PARIS /DÉPARTEMENTS", the anchor which is the attribute of Hope and books, including Rousseau's Le Contrat Social. The philosopher of the Enlightenment is honored in the background by a monument to him, in the form of a truncated pyramid bearing the date 1790. To the left, the ruined Bastille dominates an autodafé where works from the Ancien Régime, such as Necker's Red Book, are burned. A snake emerges from the flames, symbolizing immortality and intelligence, as well as embodying the Revolution, which overthrew the nobility and the clergy.