Cadaver Tomb of René of Chalon

Cadaver Tomb of René of Chalon
Upper section of the Transi de René de Chalon
Artist	Ligier Richier
Year	c. 1545-47
Type	Sculpture

The Cadaver Tomb of René of Chalon (French: Transi de René de Chalon, also known as the Monument of René de Chalon or The Skeleton) is a life-sized funerary statue in the church of Saint-Étienne in Bar-le-Duc, France. Completed between 1545 and 1547, the majority of its construction is attributed to the French sculptor Ligier Richier. Other elements, including the coat of arms and the funeral drapery, are later additions, dating from the 16th and 18th centuries respectively.

The tomb was commissioned as the resting place of René of Chalon, Prince of Orange, brother-in-law of Duke Antoine of Lorraine. René was killed at the siege of St. Dizier on July 15, 1544, dying aged 25 from a wound sustained the previous day. He is represented as an écorché, with his skin rotted away and his muscles fully decayed, leaving him reduced to a skeleton, which apparently fulfilled his deathbed wish that his tomb depicts his body as it would be three years after his death. René's left arm is raised as if gesturing towards heaven. Supposedly, at one time his heart was held in a heart-shaped reliquary placed in the hand of this raised arm of the sculpture. Unusually for contemporary objects of this type, the skeleton is shown standing, making it a "living corpse", an innovation that was to become highly influential. The tomb effigy is positioned above an altarpiece.

The tomb was designated as a Monument historique object on June 18, 1898. It was moved for safekeeping to the Panthéon in Paris during World War 1, before it was returned to Bar-le-Duc in 1920. Both the statue and altarpiece underwent extensive restoration between 1998 and 2003. Replicas of the statue are in the Musée Barrois in Bar-le-Duc and the Palais de Chaillot, Paris.

Death of René of Chalon and tomb commission

Jan van Scorel, Portrait of Anna of Lorraine, 1542

René of Chalon, Prince of Orange, died on 15 July 1544, aged 25, during the siege of St. Dizier where he fought for Emperor Charles V. He had been mortally wounded in battle the previous day, and died with the Emperor in attendance at his bedside. Charles wrote soon after to René's wife, Anna of Lorraine (d. 1568), setting out in detail the circumstances of René's last hours and death.

René of Chalon

René died without leaving any direct descendants. The monument fulfils Anna's wish that he be represented above this tomb as an écorché, that is a body without skin, and "as he would be three years after his death". Cadaver tombs had been built for other members of the family, including his father Henry III of Nassau-Breda, his uncle Philibert of Chalon grandmother and the uncle of his wife. It is thought that either René or his wife requested that his tomb represent him "not as a standard figure but a life-size skeleton with strips of dried skin flapping over a hollow carcass, whose right hand clutches at the empty rib cage while the left hand holds high his heart in a grand gesture". However, this intention has never been definitively attributed, and there is no mention of it in either Charles' letter or René's will. Given this lack of record, and that at only 25 years, René was unlikely to have previously thought closely about his own burial and memorial, it seems most likely that the idea behind the design came from Anna, who is known to have commissioned the piece from Richier, who was then little known outside his local area of Saint-Mihiel in north-eastern France.

In accordance with contemporary funeral rites, René's heart, bowels, flesh and bones were separated. His heart and bowels remained at Bar and were placed in the Collegiate Church of St. Maxe, abandoned in 1782, while the rest were transferred to Breda to rest with his father and his daughter, who died in early infancy. His widow commissioned Ligier Richier to construct a transi to hold some of the remains of her husband. The monument, along with the other relics of the Dukes of Bar, was transferred to the church of Saint-Étienne in June 1790.

Ann commissioned the building of the tomb as a memento mori, but it is not known with what level of detail her instructions came with. It is perhaps Richier's best known work, remarkable for its original presentation of a "living corpse", a motif unparalleled in earlier funerary art. He produced one more work in a similar vein, his Death, now in the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Dijon. Both works are comparable in form and intent to the 1520s La Mort Saint-Innocent originally from the Holy Innocents' Cemetery in Paris, now in the Musee du Louvre. In that work, a realistically depicted and severely emaciated corpses raises his right hand upwards while holding a shield in his left hand.

Interpretation

Cadaver tombs, in France known as Transis, were intended to show the human body's "transition" from life to decomposition. Art historians debate this particular example's meaning, specifically the symbolism of the raised hand and what it might originally have held. At one time, the raised hand is supposed to have contained the prince's actual dried heart, but the heart was broken off and stolen by a soldier in 1793, and with it, the heart was lost.

The effigy is viewed by art historians in two distinct ways. The more literal interpretation is that the tomb is a dedication commissioned by a loving and pious wife. Other scholars read deeper meaning, and invoking a sense of the "spirituality of death", view the work as a comment on both the inevitability and effect of death. These opposing interpretations were juxtaposed by the novelist Louis Bertrand when he wrote that the tomb may represent either a despairing "rotten", or romantic and eternal "lovers", point of view.

Description

Cadaver

File:Death (Ligier Richier).jpg

Ligier Richier, Death, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Dijon. This is the other of Richier's works to show a "living corpse".

Unknown artist, La Mort Saint-Innocent, 1520s. Musee du Louvre

A limestone statue of a putrefied and skinless corpse stands above the altarpiece. Its left hand reaches out, while the other hand rests on its chest. This hand holds his preserved heart, and is extended in a gesture that may be either pleading or in tribute to a higher being. It is 177 cm in height, and made from black marble and white stone. The figure is composed from three blocks of stone making up his head and torso, his left arm, and his legs and pelvis; each of which slot into each other. The statue and frame are supported by an iron stud located at the figure's pelvis.

The frame consists of black marble octagonal panels set in white stone, between which were twelve small corbel statuettes measuring between 38 and 40 cm in height. Of these, six were destroyed in November 1793 during the French Revolution. The escutcheon above him is missing its shield or emblem.

The skeleton is sculpted with forensic and unflinching realism. It is placed on a stylobate which supports two black marble columns and a Corinthian capital. A coat of arms is placed underneath the figure, while the escutcheon is empty. The emaciated figure has been described as a "rotting corpse with shredded muscles falling from the bones and skin hanging in flaps over a hollow carcass". His left hand reaches upwards as if pleading to heaven or God. The gesture may be in reference to the biblical passage from Job 19:26: "And though after my skin, worms destroy my body, yet in my flesh shall I see God".

The hand was replaced and shown holding either a clepsydra or hourglass, obvious symbolic objects for a memento mori. However, that placement changed the meaning of the sculpture, from a representation of René to a depiction of the personification of death or as a danse macabre. Sometime later this was replaced by less leading, but perhaps dull, current smooth round stone. The gesture may represent contrite pleading or supplication, or if the hand did initially hold his heart, represent the ability of the spirit to overcome death. Art historian Kathleen Cohen writes that the monument may be an illustration of the "doctrine of corruption as a necessary step toward regeneration".

Altarpiece and frame

Full view with black marble columns and altarpiece

The altarpiece beneath the sculpture is made from black carved marble and limestone and measures 105 x 233 inches. Its top-slap is taken from the former tomb of Henry IV, Count of Bar (d. 1344) and Yolande of Flanders (d. 1395). The black-slab contains two old series of inscriptions which are also later additions. The Coat of arms of Bar and Lorraine were added to the front face in 1810 on request by the then vicar of Saint-Étienne, Claude Rollet. The funeral drapery is also a later addition to the monument.

The altar holds a glass covered holding for the bones of the royals of Bar, and includes the remains of Henry IV, Count of Bar and his wife Yolande, Robert, Duke of Bar (d. 1411) and his wife Marie of France (d. 1404), as well as those of their son, Edward III, Duke of Bar (d. 1415). Other possible internees include Frederick I, Duke of Upper Lorraine, Edward I, Count of Bar (d. 1336) and Mary of Burgundy (b. 1298). The mural on the wall behind the statue was painted by Varembel Barber in 1790.

Provenance and conservation

The tomb was originally placed in the collegiate church of Saint-Maxe in Bar-le-Duc, where it was positioned over a vault which held the hearts of Antoine de Lorraine, René and other members of his family. It was moved to the church of St Ėtienne in 1782 when the former site was abandoned. It was moved to the Panthéon in Paris during World War 1, before it was returned to Bar-le-Duc in 1920.

Bones of the royals of Bar

Due to humidity and impact with water, the tomb has suffered damage over the centuries. It was restored in 1969 by Maxime Chiquet d'Allancancelles. Both the statue and altarpiece underwent further restoration between 1998 and 2003. An extensive assessment and historical study commissioned by the Direction régionale des affaires culturelles in 1998 was followed by a health assessment and recommendations in 2001.

The later restoration was conducted over a number of stages, beginning with the dismantling of the statue which was painstakingly cleaned with cotton buds, before the altar was dismantled to clean its back wall. Microcrystalline cellulose wax was used to polish both the back wall and side columns. Restorer Françoise Joseph cleaned the mural, brightening the colours, and during the process discovered decorations at each of its four corners. Because the church's basement is often water-logged in winter, the mural had been damaged by humidity. Repairs to the statue included the removal of wrinkles, splinters, cracks and graffiti, with a lot of the work centered on areas around the groin, knee and pelvis. The iron fasteners were removed and replaced with stainless steel studs, removing future risk of oxidation.

Sources

• Chastel, André. French Art: The Renaissance, 1430-1620. Flammarion, 1995. ISBN 978-2-0801-3583-4
• Cohen, Kathleen. Metamorphosis of a Death Symbol: The Transi Tomb in the Late Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1973. ISBN 978-0-5200-1844-0
• Cohen, Kathleen. The Changing Meaning of the Transi Tomb in Fifteenth and Sixteenth-Century Europe. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1968
• Gedo, Mary. Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Art, Volume 3. Routledge, 1998
• Jones, David Annwn. Gothic effigy: A guide to dark visibilities. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018. ISBN 978-1-5261-0122-8
• Kuyper, W. The Triumphant Entry of Renaissance Architecture Into the Netherlands. Alphen aan den Rijn: Canaletto, 2004. ISBN 978-9-0646-9693-0
• Manca, Joseph; Bade, Patrick; Costello, Sarah; Charles, Victoria. 30 Millennia of Sculpture. New York: Parkstone International, 2016. ASIN: B0769QD14W
• Noël, Bernard; Choné, Paulette. Ligier Richier. Thionville Conseil général de la Meuse, 2000. ISBN 978-2-9126-4520-3
• Rowen, Herbert. The Princes of Orange: the Stadholders in the Dutch Republic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988. ISBN 978-0-5213-9653-0
• Ventura, Varla. Beyond Bizarre: Frightening Facts and Blood-Curdling True Tales. Newburyport, MA: Weiser Books, 2010. ASIN: B0042JTAUQ

External links

• Entry at the Ministère de la Culture de France