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François-Joseph Belanger’s Bath-House at the Hôtel de Brancas

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 April 2016

Rachel Perry
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Extract

The first executed work in architecture of François-Joseph Belanger (1744–1818) — one of the most important neo-classical architects of late Ancien-Régime France — was a bath-house for the Comte de Lauraguais. It was built in one of France’s earliest jardins anglais, which Lauraguais had laid out in the grounds of his Paris residence, the Hôtel de Brancas, on the rue de l’Université. It is one of Belanger’s most familiar works, not least because his own drawings and description survive to record it. This wealth of documentation makes it a uniquely knowable example of Belanger’s architecture in the first decade of his professional life, before the construction of the Comte d’Artois’ folie of Bagatelle, upon which much of his reputation rests.

Type
Section 8: Gardens and Parks
Information
Architectural History , Volume 44 , 2001 , pp. 377 - 385
Copyright
Copyright © Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain 2001

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References

Notes

1 Some confusion persists about the correct spelling of Belanger’s name, which is frequently written Bélanger, with an acute accent. I choose to use the accentless version, following Jean Stern’s judgment on the matter: ‘C’est Belanger qu’il convient d’adopter, si l’on se réfère à la signature de l’artiste et aux actes officiels qui le concernent’ (A l’ombre de Sophie Arnould: François-Joseph Belanger, Architecte des Menus-Plaisirs, Premier Architecte du Comte d’Artois, 2 vols (Paris, 1930), 1, p. 11).

2 The Hôtel de Brancas is currently known as the Hôtel de Lassay. The location of the bath-house has sometimes been confused with the Hôtel de Lauraguais, rue de Taitbout. On the claims of the garden of the Hôtel de Brancas to be the first fully irregular garden in France, see Wiebenson, Dora, The Picturesque Garden in France (Princeton, 1978), p. 81 n. 1.Google Scholar

3 Drawings at the RIBA; Bibliothèque Nationale, Cabinet des Estampes, Va 285, XIII; Musée des Arts Décoratifs, nos 7217-19; Musée Carnavalet, D.4078; description in Ottomeyer, Hans, ‘François-Joseph Belanger’, Autobiographies d’architectes parisiens, 1759-1811 (1974)Google Scholar (reprinted from the Bulletin de la Société de l’histoire de Paris et de l’Ile-de-France [1971], pp. 141-203), pp. 5-9.

4 This revises the date of 1769 originally proposed for this commission by Stern, , Belanger, 1, pp. 16–21 Google Scholar. The date of 1768 is supported by many other sources, not least Belanger’s inscription on Fig. 1.

5 Edmond, et de Goncourt, Louis, Sophie Arnould d’après sa correspondance et ses mémoires inédits (Paris, 1857)Google Scholar, passim; Stern, op. cit., passim.

6 Ottomeyer, op. cit. (n. 3 above), p. 6.

7 On Belanger’s travels in England, see Stern, op. cit., 1, pp. 4–6; Woodbridge, Kenneth, ‘Bélanger en Angleterre: son carnet de voyage’, Architectural History, 25 (1982), pp. 8–19 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Barrier, Janine, ‘Les voyages outre-Manche de François-Joseph Bélanger’, Histoire de l’Art, 12 (1990), pp. 37-48Google Scholar.

8 I am not suggesting that Belanger would have known the Casino at first hand. His knowledge would have been restricted to drawings and engravings.

9 Stern, op. cit., II, pp. 110-11, 186-88.

10 ‘Il rappelait dans son aspect l’un de ces Temples, Systylos et Protylos, tel que celui de la fortune Virile ou l’un de ceux que décrit Palladio et qui existoient à Pole en Istrie’ (Ottomeyer, op. cit., p. 6).

11 Stern, op. cit., 1, p. 19; McCormick, Thomas J., Charles-Louis Clérisseau and the Genesis of Neo-Classicism (New York, 1990), p. 176.Google Scholar

12 ‘J’ai orné la Façade de Colonnes formant le Péristile, comme le font la plupart des Cazins Italiens, afin de lui donner le jeu & le mouvement qui rendent en général l’effet de ces sortes de Bâtimens très-agréable; on en voit un très-grand nombre d’examples dans Palladio’ (Peyre, Marie-Joseph, Œuvres d’architecture (Paris, 1765), p. 7 Google Scholar).

13 Ottomeyer, op. cit., p. 6.

14 Blondel, Jacques-François, Les amours rivaux ou l’homme du monde éclairé par les arts (Paris, 1774), 1, pp. 255-66Google Scholar.

15 Ottomeyer, loc. cit.

16 ‘Ce fut la Construction de ce petit Monument qui fit appeler, de Rome à Paris, Lhuillier qui y amena la Sculpture d’Ornement, dans le Goût des Anciens’ (ibid.).

17 ‘Avant cette Epoque aucune Production de ce genre n’avait été exécuté à Paris depuis les sublimes travaux de Jean Goujon et Germain Pilon’ (ibid.).

18 ‘Il dirigera pour ce petit temple un Bas-relief d’ornement de 9 mètre 60 centimetres de long, sur hauteur I mètre 70 centimètres’ (ibid.).

19 However, contrary to the assertion of Stern (op. cit., 1, pp. 19-20), they do not depend on Piranesi’s Diverse maniere di adornare i cammini (Rome, 1769). Stern, who claims to see a narrow dependence on Piranesi in Belanger’s early decoration, was mistaken in his guess that Lhuillier returned to France from Rome with Piranesi’s chimney book, for it was not published until the year after the bath-house’s construction.

20 ‘Belanger . . . a employé et propagé le genre des Ornements grotesques et arabesques en faisant appliquer la sculpture sur des fonds de Stuck coloriés ainsi que cela a été pratiqué pour la premiere fois dans la décoration intérieure de l’hôtel Mazarin à Paris’ (Ottomeyer, loc. cit.). On the Hôtel de Mazarin see Faraggi, Catherine, ‘Le goût de la duchesse de Mazarin’, L’Estampille—L’Objet d’art (no. 287, January 1995), pp. 72–98 Google Scholar.

21 See von Kainein, Wend Graf & Levey, Michael, Art ana Architecture of the Eighteenth Century in France (Harmondsworth, 1972), p. 327 Google Scholar. However, Kalnein seems to have subsequently revised his earlier opinion: see id., Architecture in France in the Eighteenth Century (New Haven, 1995), p. 88. See also Braham, Allan, Art and Architecture of the French Enlightenment (London, 1980), p. 221 Google Scholar.

22 AN Z/Ij/921, 26 July 1768, ‘Estimation de l’hotel de Lassay rue de l’Université et du marquisat de Lassay à la requête du comte de Brancas’.

23 Ottomeyer, op. cit., p. 6.

24 It is true that in his application for membership of the Académie d’Architecture of November 1774 Belanger claimed to have built ‘un pavillon de bains a l’hotel de Brancas et ses decorations intérieures’ (ibid., p. 5). However, it seems highly likely that he was being extravagant with the truth to boost his standing with the Academicians. Such behaviour was characteristic of him.

25 Bibliothèque Nationale, Cabinet des Estampes, Va 285, XIII (Hôtel de Brancas); Ha 58 (Hôtel de Mirepoix); Va 448e (Château-Neuf de Saint-Germain).