The Hector Berlioz Website

Berlioz Cartoon Collection  1 : 1830s

Artist: Horace Vernet – Rome, ca. 1831-1832

    Berlioz was in Italy at the time as a Prix de Rome laureate; Vernet was the Director of  the Académie de France, Villa Medici, Rome. A reproduction of this drawing is in the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris.

"Montfort and Berlioz"

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). 

"M. Berlioz (Ber-lit-haut)"

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.  

Benvenuto Cellini

Artist: Benjamin
published in Caricature provisoire, 1 November 1838

    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.

© 2003-2007 (unless otherwise stated) Monir Tayeb and Michel Austin.