2-730-115 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Funerary Monument for the Marquis de Tourney (for the Chapel of the Château de la Falaise), 1787-1793. Delaistre created this sculpture for a funeral monument commissioned by the Marquis Gallyot de Tourny for himself and erected in the chapel of his chateau of La Falaise between 1787 and 1793. The young woman gestures with her left hand toward an urn bearing the inscription Voila ce coeur qui nous a tant aimé (Here is the heart which has loved so many of us). The sculpture follows a pattern that had become customary for such monuments in the last quarter of the century, with a single female figure dominating the design. Usually that figure was of an allegorical or religious subject. However, the marquis gave very precise instructions that she should instead be a rosière , a virtuous young woman chosen from the general population and awarded a garland of roses, hence the name given to the honoree. Saint Medard initiated this ceremony in AD 530, but when revived by the marquis in the 1700s, it was seen both as a reward of virtue and a symbol of a growing sympathy for democracy: the rosière was customarily a girl of rather humble circumstances, not an aristocrat.