Unless otherwise stated all pictures on this page have been scanned from engravings and other publications in our own collection. All rights of reproduction reserved.
Chinese shadows attributed to Signol – Rome, 1831
Montfort and Berlioz were fellow Prix de Rome laureates (music) and were based at the Académie de France in Rome at the time; the above image was drawn by Signol, another fellow laureate (painting).
Artist: Dantan
published in Charivari, 5 May 1836
Note how Berlioz’s name has been spelled out with a pictogram (“lit”, with silent t, French for bed) and the location on the pedestal of Berlioz’s bust (“haut” with silent h and t, French for top [of the pedestal]): Ber - lit - haut. At the time many of Berlioz’s contemporaries did not pronounce the z at the end of his surname.
Artist: Benjamin
published in Caricature provisoire, 1er novembre 1838, 5 May 1836
Note the distortion of the title of Berlioz’s first opera, from Benvenuto Cellini to Malvenuto Cellini. The Italian word benvenuto means welcome; malvenuto denotes the opposite. The full caption reads: “Grrrand opéra. Grrande représentation extraordinaire de Malvenuto Cellini, avec pasquinades littéraires et arlequinades musicales. A la fin de la parade une grrande statue sera coulée... l’auteur aussi.” A copy of the cartoon is in the Bibliothèque nationale de France, and another is in the Musée Hector Berlioz at La Côte Saint-André.
© (unless otherwise stated) Monir Tayeb and Michel Austin.
