Alexandre Menjaud (1768–1832) - Study For "the Coronation Of Tasso" - Oil On Paper

Alexandre Toussaint MENJAUD
(Paris, 1768 – Paris, 1832)

Study for The coronation of Tasso

Oil on paper mounted on canvas
37,5 x 29.5 cm unframed
55 x 47 cm framed
Circa 1819

Related work: Painting exhibited at the 1819 Paris Salon under number 819

The scene depicts the death of Tasso (1544–1595) at the Convent of Saint-Onuphre, on the very day that the famous author of Jerusalem Delivered was to be crowned on the Capitoline Hill.
The final version of this painting was exhibited at the 1819 Salon, No. 819, with the following description:
Tasso died in Rome, at the Convent of Saint Onuphrius, while preparations were being made for his coronation at the Capitoline Hill. The pope had received him a few days earlier with the utmost distinction and had addressed these memorable words to him upon announcing his triumph: “You will honor this laurel, which, until now, has honored those who have received it.” Deeply moved by the loss of this great poet, he charged Cardinal Cinthio with placing on his funeral bier the crown he was to have received on the Capitoline Hill.
The life of Tasso, the celebrated poet whose most famous work is Jerusalem Delivered, aroused great interest among artists in the early nineteenth century. It was the dramatic aspect of Tasso’s life that captivated the Romantics. To them, he embodied the misunderstood artist, the genius persecuted by mediocrities and unjustly accused of madness. Lord Byron’s poem The Lament of Tasso dates from 1817, and Goethe’s play Torquato Tasso was translated into French as early as 1823. In 1819, Ducis exhibited The Death of Tasso at the Convent of Saint-Onuphre. The Lyon-based painter Fleury-Richard presented a "Montaigne Visiting Tasso in the Hospital" at the 1822 Salon (Lyon Museum of Fine Arts). Eugène Delacroix painted two works on the subject of Tasso in the Madhouse, one exhibited at the 1824 Salon (private collection), the other dated 1839 (Oskar Reinhart Collection, Winterthur). It was, in fact, the 1839 version that inspired Baudelaire’s poem “The Poet in the Dungeon”... published in 1844.

Alexandre Toussaint Menjaud was born on November 24, 1768, in Paris. He was the son of Jean Menjaud (1745–after 1796), advisor to the king, attorney at the Parliament, notary at the Châtelet in Paris from 1770 to 1787, and justice of the peace in 1791 and 1792, and Madeleine Dupré (1753–after 1792). His half-brother was Jean Adolphe Menjaud (1795–1864), an actor at the Comédie-Française.
Alexandre was a student of Baron Regnault at the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris. He exhibited at the Salon from 1796 until 1834 (a posthumous exhibition). He won the First Grand Prix de Rome in 1802 with Éponine and Sabinus before Vespasian, and was also awarded medals on two other occasions, in 1806 and 1819.
The artist died on September 6, 1832, in Paris and was buried at the Montparnasse Cemetery.

Museums: Bordeaux, Draguignan, Bayeux, Saint-Germain, Chambord, La Fère, Versailles, Lavaur, Pau, Fontainebleau, Marseille, Montargis…