essays in architectural history presented to john newman || françois-joseph belanger's...

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François-Joseph Belanger's Bath-House at the Hôtel de BrancasAuthor(s): Rachel PerrySource: Architectural History, Vol. 44, Essays in Architectural History Presented to JohnNewman (2001), pp. 377-385Published by: SAHGB Publications LimitedStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1568767 .

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Fran ois -Joseph Belanger's

Bath-House at the Hotel de

Brancas by RACHEL PERRY

The first executed work in architecture of Francois-Joseph

Belanger (1744-I818) -

one of the most important neo-classical architects of late Ancien-Regime 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

H6tel de Brancas, on the rue de l'Universit.2 It is one of Belanger's most familiar works, not least because his own drawings and description survive to record it.3 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.

The broad lines of the bath-house's commission are as follows. It was ordered by the eccentric and flamboyant Comte de Lauraguais, at the request of his mistress, the actress, singer and wit, Sophie Arnould. As Lauraguais abandoned Sophie in mid- 1768, it is safe to presume that the commission dates from before then.4 Sophie Arnould's profession brought her into contact with the employees of the Menus Plaisirs du Roi - the department of the royal household in charge of organizing theatre performances before the court - where Belanger had begun his career as a

draughtsman the previous year. She took the young architect under her protection, and in due course became his mistress and then a lifelong friend. Her ability to secure

Belanger his first architectural commission won her the modern reputation for having launched his career.5

As his earliest work in architecture, the bath-house is evidence of Belanger's interests and mastery of his art at the start of his professional life. Belanger himself seems to have put great emphasis upon the place of this building within his cruvre.

Shortly after its execution in 1768 he presented an elevation of its main facade to William Chambers (Fig. i), and in a letter of application for membership of the Institut National (de France) in late 1799 or i 8oo he described it at greater length than any other of his works.6 However, the apparent importance of this evidence may be distorted. Although the circumstances of his gift to Chambers are not known with certainty, we can speculate upon them. Belanger is known to have travelled to England sometime before 1777, almost certainly later than the years 1765-67 originally



378 ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY 44: 2001

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Fig. i. Fran(oisJ-oseph Belanger: elevation of the main fa(ade of the bath-house at the H6tel de Brancas, Paris, 1768 (British Architectural Library, RIBA, Lndon)

proposed by Jean Stern.7 The inscription on the drawing suggests that he met Chambers, to whom he would have been introduced by David Leroy, a good friend of the English architect and one of Belanger's teachers at the Ecole de l'Academie d'Architecture in the years 1763-65. Belanger may have hoped to flatter the older man with a work which could be read as a homage to his Casino at Marino,' but the choice of the bath-house could well be a reflexion upon the fact that Belanger may have had no other executed works to offer so early in his career. In his Institut application, Belanger almost certainly had a hidden desire to spark interest in the contents of the studio of the late Nicolas-Frangois-David Lhuillier (d. 1793), which he had acquired seven years earlier and hoped to sell to the nation.9 Lhuillier was the sculptor responsible for the bas-reliefs which formed the bath-house's decoration.



BELANGER'S BATH-HOUSE 379

A critical revaluation of the surviving evidence is necessary to establish the true significance of the bath-house to Belanger's career. Its principal interest stems from the portico of four free-standing 8 m-high Ionic columns supporting a straight entablature which screens its entrance. According to Belanger's description of 1799-I 8oo 'it recalled in its appearance one of those temples, Systyle or Prostyle, such as that of Fortuna Virilis or one of those described by Palladio and which existed at Pola in Istria.'10 This apparent interest in archaeology has prompted some writers to conclude that at this early point in his career Belanger was particularly under the influence of David Leroy's antiquarianism. However, Belanger had another teacher of significance in his early years at the Ecole de l'Academie, Pierre Le Contant d'Ivry, in terms of whose influence the bath-house may be better understood.

Belanger's stated sources of inspiration were not the Greeks promoted by Leroy but the Romans. Belanger did not know the sources at first hand, but through the plates in his Palladio, and possibly through the drawings of Charles-Louis Clrisseau, who, according to an unsubstantiated tradition, is held to have played the role of consultant in the design of this building." Yet despite Belanger's claims, the bath-house was no archaeological reconstruction. Belanger seems to have been deliberately distorting the truth in his description of 1799-18oo in order to make the bath-house appear to have conformed to the stylistic concerns of the time of writing, which dictated a closer adherence to the form of ancient monuments than had been the fashion at the time the bath-house was built. Comparison of the elevations with their alleged prototypes reveals more differences than it does similarities, of which the absence of a pediment is merely the most striking. It is replaced by a balustrade and sculptures, which seem to derive from works of Palladio's own invention rather than from the ancient sources illustrated in his Quattro Libri.

It is true that in the climate of the late 1760s a portico of free-standing columns carrying a straight lintel to the proportions of a classical prototype may have been enough to evoke an ancient temple. This structural system had recently been endorsed by the Abbe Laugier in his widely-read Essai sur l'architecture (1753), which argued for an architecture based on the concept of the 'primitive hut', although he advocated pediments as well as columns and entablatures.

Laugier's theory had found its equivalent practical expression in the work of the pioneering church-designers of the eighteenth century, among whom was Pierre Le Contant d'Ivry. Contant had employed columns and straight entablatures at Saint- Wasnon at Conde-sur-l'Escaut (1750-55) before the publication of Laugier's Essai, and while Belanger was training in his office began work on the Madeleine, which adhered to similar structural principles. At the same time as the construction of this later church began, Contant carried out his second campaign of works at the Palais- Royal. There he articulated two pavilions on the garden front with an order of paired columns - albeit at first-floor level only - supporting a straight entablature and balustrade, projecting forwards from an attic storey above (Fig. 2). This may have suggested to Belanger the possibility of fronting a domestic

facade with a similar

portico. Contant's design is itself a reworking of nothing less than Claude Perrault's east front of the Louvre (c. 1670), the most extensive indigenous source for the revived interest in column-and-entablature structures in the second half of the eighteenth



380 ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY 44: 2ooi

NI

inJA

l Fig. 2. Pierre Le Contant d'Ivry: elevation of a pavilion on the gardenfront of the Palais- Royal, Paris

century. Incidentally, this same work introduced a motif, particularly favoured by Ange-Jacques Gabriel and other early neo-classical architects, of a garlanded wil-de- bwouf which crops up on the side elevation of Belanger's bath-house (Fig. 3).

Contant's Palais-Royal fagade would have made Belanger sensitive to the bolder expressions of a similar theme which began to appear in domestic architecture in and around Paris at the same date. The first of these was M.-J. Peyre's Maison Neubourg (early 176os), set in semi-rural surroundings on the southern outskirts of the city (Fig. 4). Although Belanger would have known this building at first hand, he may also have been acquainted with the written description by its architect published in 1765, in which Peyre claimed to have 'decorated the fagade with columns forming a peristyle, like most Italian casinos, in order to provide the relief and movement which in general make the effect of this kind of building very agreeable; and of which a large number are to be seen in Palladio.'12 Belanger, who referred to his bath-house as a 'Cazin'"3 must have intended to evoke similar sources. He clearly sought to create effects of light and shade not only through the portico, but also through the interplay of various geometric masses from which he constructed his bath-house, lending it a more varied and plastic form than the classical temples which he claimed as his inspiration.

In the same year that Belanger built Lauraguais' bath-house with its distinctive portico, Claude-Nicolas Ledoux employed a similar theme when remodelling the court front of the H6tel d'Uzes. He screened this with four giant free-standing columns, provoking his former teacher, Jacques-Frangois Blondel, to denounce him for offending convention by using a giant order in a domestic setting.14 Direct influence of one building upon the other is improbable. Rather, both architects were




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Fig. 3. Fran(ois-Joseph Belanger: side elevation of the bath-house at the Hotel de Brancas, Paris, 1768 (Mus&e Carnavalet, D.4o78)

Fig. 4.JeanI-Baptiste Marichal: view of the Maison Ncubour b),y Marie-Joseph Peyre, earl)y 176os (Bibliotheque Nationale de France, Destailleur Collection, Ve 53f)

. . . .. . . Z?XI

interpreting the same contemporary theme, with Belanger employing it in a less developed form than his senior colleague.

The lateral walls of the bath-house did not extend backwards flush with the portico, as in the classical temples which Belanger claimed were his source, but widened after a




single bay to allow the creation of an interior room considerably less cramped than the cella of an ancient temple. This was designed to contain a salon to the full height of the roof, while the narrower projection which preceded it on the entrance front must have contained a vestibule and probably also stairs to the attic above and the basement beneath the salon. This basement probably contained the bathing chamber itself, arranged as an 'Oriental bath'.15

The decoration of the bath-house has been invested with great significance by modern critics. This reflects a combination of respect for Belanger's enthusiastic promotion of his own work and an over-zealous interest in establishing the first appearance of the new arabesque style which is considered a hallmark of French neo- classicism. As mentioned above, the sculptural decoration of the bath-house was executed by Lhuillier. Belanger claimed to have summoned him from Rome specifically for this commission. He also claimed that the sculptor brought with him the art of 'ornamental sculpture in the antique taste'16 'which before this date had not been executed in Paris since the sublime work of Jean Goujon and Germain Pilon'17 in the sixteenth century. Belanger singled out one of Lhuillier's reliefs for the bath- house for special mention: 'an ornamental relief of 9 m 60 cm long, and I m 70 cm high'.18 Its size, clearly intended to impress, allows us to identify it as the relief on the attic of the main elevation (Fig. i). It is surely correct to take this rinceaux-and-putti panel as the prime example of the Belanger-Lhuillier decorative style at this time. It does indeed evoke the work of Belanger's stated sixteenth-century French preced- ents- particularly Goujon's reliefs in the Cour Carree of the Louvre. This is fused with knowledge of ancient Roman sculpture, drawings of which both Lhuillier and Clrisseau would have had in their portfolios.19 However, this panel is not what is usually understood as arabesque work. Indeed, a careful reading of Belanger's description reveals that the architect himself claimed to have first employed arabesques not at the bath-house but at the H6tel de Mazarin where he began work in

1774.20 Another distinctive decorative feature of the main fagade is the sculpted female figures in niches flanking the doorway. They vividly foreshadow Belanger's dining room at the Chaiteau of Maisons (c. 1778). Belanger's drawing of the salon within the bath-house has architecture similar to that of the exterior portico, made up of load- bearing columns supporting a straight entablature, niche sculptures and bas-relief panels (Fig. 5). This makes for a fashionable 1768 interior, but not one of the extraordinarily innovative nature that some modern critics have believed the bath- house to contain. This has led some writers to the hypothesis that the most important decoration must have been contained in the unillustrated bathing chamber itself.21

The reality was probably entirely different. A survey report ofJuly 1768, drawn up in preparation for the sale of the H6tel de Brancas to the Prince de Conde on 23 September of that year, described the bath-house as 'begun' but 'unfinished', with no hint of work's having begun on the interior.22 The new owner did not wish to preserve Lauraguais'jardin anglais, and it was soon destroyed, bath-house included.23 It is possible that Belanger installed the interior of his little building in the two months before the property changed hands, but it seems more likely that work would have been suspended once the sale had been agreed.24




IR-

-- ----- .........

L"lad

Fig. 5. Franpois-Joseph Belanger: design for the salon of the bath-house at the H tel de Brancas, Paris, c. 1768 (Mus"e des Arts Dicoratifs, no. 7218)

The short life of this building and its minor nature explain why it passed without critical mention in Belanger's lifetime, other than by its architect himself, and why it seems to have had no obvious influence on the architecture of his contemporaries. However, Belanger himself tried to develop themes introduced in his bath-house in a number of unexecuted h6tel and chateau designs of the late 176os and 1770s. Variants of its columned and statued portico and stepped pyramid roof appear in projects for the H6tel de Brancas, the H6tel de Mirepoix and the Ch teau-Neuf de Saint-Germain.25 None was built.

Besides being the building that launched his career, there were two main consequences of the bath-house commission on Belanger's executed work. Firstly, it marked the start of a fruitful collaboration with Lhuillier, whose stucco work was to become so characteristic ofBelanger's decorative style. Secondly, it involved Belanger, albeit incidentally, in adding the finishing touch to one of France's earliest jardins anglais, thus introducing him to the genre for which he was subsequently to develop such a reputation. Interestingly, the initiation to the art of 'English gardens' came from a French source. Indeed, as the architecture of the bath-house demonstrates, at this time in his career, all of Belanger's immediate sources belonged within the French tradition. It is necessary to wait until after his first journey to England in the early




I770s to detect the influence of English Palladianism which suffused his work from Bagatelle onwards.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This article is adapted from part of my doctoral thesis, supervised byJohn Newman, 'Frangois- Joseph Belanger, Architect (1744-1818), "Amant passionne de son art" ', Courtauld Institute, 1998. I am grateful to the following institutions for permission to reproduce drawings in their collections: the RIBA (Fig. i), the Musee Carnavalet (Fig. 3), the Bibliotheque Nationale de France (Fig. 4), and the Musee des Arts Decoratifs (Fig. 4).

NOTES

I Some confusion persists about the correct spelling of Belanger's name, which is frequently written Bdlanger, 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 ref~ere a la signature de l'artiste et aux actes officiels qui le concernent' (A l'ombre de Sophie Arnould: Frangois-Joseph Belanger, Architecte des Menus-Plaisirs, Premier Architecte du Comte d'Artois, 2 vols (Paris, 1930), I, p. I1). 2 The H6tel de Brancas is currently known as the H6tel de Lassay. The location of the bath-house has sometimes been confused with the H6tel de Lauraguais, rue de Taitbout. On the claims of the garden of the H6tel de Brancas to be the first fully irregular garden in France, see Dora Wiebenson, The Picturesque Garden in France (Princeton, 1978), p. 81 n. I. 3 Drawings at the RIBA; Bibliotheque Nationale, Cabinet des Estampes, Va 285, XIII; Musee des Arts

Decoratifs, nos 7217-19; Musee Carnavalet, D.4o78; description in Hans Ottomeyer, 'Frangois-Joseph Belanger', Autobiographies d'architectes parisiens, 1759-1811 (1974) (reprinted from the Bulletin de la Socidtd de l'histoire de Paris et de l'Ile-de-France [19711, pp. 141-203), pp. 5-9. 4 This revises the date of 1769 originally proposed for this commission by Stern, Belanger, i, pp. 16-2 I1. The date of 1768 is supported by many other sources, not least Belanger's inscription on Fig. I. 5 Edmond et Louis de Goncourt, Sophie Arnould d'apres sa correspondance et ses minmoires inedits (Paris, I1857), 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., I, pp. 4-6; Kenneth Woodbridge, 'Be1anger en

Angleterre: son carnet de voyage', Architectural History, 25 (1982), pp. 8-19;Janine Barrier, 'Les voyages outre- Manche de Frangois-Joseph Be1anger', Histoire de l'Art, 12 (1990), pp. 37-48. 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. iio-ii, i86-88. io 'Il1 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 decrit Palladio et qui existoient

' Pole en Istrie' (Ottomeyer, op. cit., p. 6).

I i Stern, op. cit., I, p. 19; Thomas J. McCormick, Charles-Louis Cl&isseau and the Genesis of Neo-Classicism

(New York, 1990), p. 176. 12 'J'ai orn6 la Faqade de Colonnes formant le Peristile, comme le font la pluipart des Cazins Italiens, afin de lui donner lejeu & le mouvement qui rendent en general l'effet de ces sortes de Bitimens tres-agreable; on en voit un tr&s-grand nombre d'examples dans Palladio' (Marie-Joseph Peyre, CEuvres d'architecture (Paris, 1765), p. 7). 13 Ottomeyer, op. cit., p. 6.

I14 Jacques-Frangois Blondel, Les amours rivaux ou l'homme du monde &claire par les arts (Paris, 1774), 1, pp. 255-66. 15 Ottomeyer, loc. cit. 16 'Ce fut la Construction de ce petit Monument qui fit appeler, de Rome '

Paris, Lhuillier qui y amena la

Sculpture d'Ornement, dans le Gofit des Anciens' (ibid.). 17 'Avant cette Epoque aucune Production de ce genre n'avait 6t6 execute

' Paris depuis les sublimes travaux

de Jean Goujon et Germain Pilon' (ibid.).




18 'Il1 dirigera pour ce petit temple un Bas-relief d'ornement de 9 metre 60 centimetres de long, sur hauteur I metre 70 centimetres' (ibid.). 19 However, contrary to the assertion of Stern (op. cit., I, pp. 19-20), they do not depend on Piranesi's Diverse maniere di adorntiare 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 employe et propage le genre des Ornements grotesques et arabesques en faisant appliquer la sculpture sur des fonds de Stuck colories ainsi que cela a 6t6 pratique pour la premiere fois dans la decoration interieure de l'h6tel Mazarin

' Paris' (Ottomeyer, loc. cit.). On the H6tel de Mazarin see Catherine Faraggi,

'Le gofit de la duchesse de Mazarin', L'Estampille- L'Objet d'art (no. 287,January 1995), pp. 72-98. 21 See Wend Graf von Kalnein & Michael Levey, Art and Architecture of the Eigihteenth Century in France

(Harmnondsworth, 1972), p. 327. However, Kalnein seems to have subsequently revised his earlier opinion: see id., Architecture in France in the Eighteenthi Century (New Haven, 1995), p. 88. See also Allan Braham, The Architecture ofthe French Enliglhtenment (London, 1980), p. 221. 22 AN Z/Ij/92I, 26 July 1768, 'Estimation de l'hotel de Lassay rue de l'Universit6 et du marquisat de Lassay Sla requite du comte de Brancas'. 23 Ottomeyer, op. cit., p. 6.

24 It is true that in his application for membership of the Academie d'Architecture of November 1774 Belanger claimed to have built 'un pavillon de bains a l'hotel de Brancas et ses decorations interieures' (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 Bibliotheque Nationale, Cabinet des Estampes, Va 285, XIII (H6tel de Brancas); Ha 58 (H6tel de

Mirepoix); Va 448e (CMhteau-Neufde Saint-Germain).



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