The decoration of this chapel was commissioned in 1832 by the painter Victor Orsel (1795-1850), who worked there for more than 15 years. The artist made a bold choice for the time: he decided to set aside the technique of oil painting «which makes the paintings shimmer» and preferred to him the painting with wax whose rendering, matte, better suited to his desire to find a “simple, temperate painting, with calm light and beauty.” The work was long and tedious and Orsel died before the end of the work in 1850. His friend Alphonse Périn completed it.
The painter draws his subjects from the litanies of the Virgin, a series of abstractions and poetic images. The program is complex and erudite, rich in symbolic details. Orsel prepared it by making numerous preparatory drawings, a model and developing his ideas in writing.
This conference will be an opportunity to recall the different stages of a restoration and the questions that arise during the construction, while evoking the work of the artist and his technique. The monumental and luminous figures of Orsel, the harmony that emerges from his paintings serve perfectly this ode to the Virgin.
This conference will be moderated by Pauline Duée, curator at the Department of Conservation of Works of Religious and Civil Arts of the City of Paris, accompanied by Méliné Miguirditchian, restorer.
Mask must be worn.