Bronze doors of the Madeleine
Baron Henri de Triqueti (1803-74)
Installed 1841
Bronze with bas-relief panels illustrating the Ten Commandments
The Madeleine, Place de la Madeleine, Paris
Other views
Photograph and text by Jacqueline Banerjee, 2009.
The point of these massive doors was to show the might and power of the law, in an attempt to shore up the monarchy of Louis-Philippe, the "Citizen King" (see Ribner 85-9). In the long run, the attempt was unsuccessful. In 1848, Louis-Philippe and his family fled incognito to England, and sought refuge in the Surrey residence of their son-in-law, King Leopold of the Belgians. Louis-Philippe died two years later, but his wife lived on at Claremont until 1866. After having been injured at the barricades, Triqueti, son of an industrialist and diplomat, also left for England, where his royal connections brought him major commissions and his career reached its zenith.
References
Ribner, Jonathan P. Broken Tablets: The Cult of the Law in French Art from David to Delacroix. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993. Available offsite here.
Last modified 30 March 2009