For 183 years, French painter François Rene Moreau It went unnoticed by those who viewed his painting Act of Consecration and Coronation of Don Pedro II. In a kind of self-portrait, Moreau is among the participants From the ceremony represented by the painting that reproduces the coronation of Emperor Don Pedro II. The recent discovery occurred almost by accident, during an operation Cleaning work. The face has been identified by a historian and researcher Mauricio Vicente Ferreira Jrwho compared the image to the oil-on-canvas portrait painted by Moreau.
Mauricio Vicente, director of the Imperial Museum in Petrópolis, in Rio de Janeiro’s mountainous region, recounts that a few years ago he saw one of Moro’s few paintings. The painting is part of the collection of the Liceo de Artes y Oficios de Río. When the cloth was removed from the Imperial Palace for cleaning, the historian had a feeling Recognize this face or have seen it before.
“I felt like I had seen the face in another context before. Indeed, the person’s features were drawn They matched the picture By François-René Moreau, an undated oil on canvas by Argemiro Cunha. The work belongs to a group “The School of Arts and Crafts in Rio de Janeiro,” Mauricio Vicente said. “We, in cooperation with the museum’s team of restorers and technicians, compared the paintings and confirmed that, in fact, It was the artist himself in his paintingHe explained.
According to the historian, with this discovery it is possible to confirm that Moreau Repeat another painter’s strategy Frenchman Jacques-Louis David, who depicted himself in a painting of another coronation, that of French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, in 1807. Mauricio Vicente noted that this practice was common during the Renaissance period, the movement of cultural and artistic renewal that occurred in Europe between the 14th and 16th centuries.
Oil on canvas from 1842, Moreau’s depiction of the coronation of Peter II was presented at the annual exhibition of the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts in the same year. The work was acquired by the Emperor a year later to be installed in the throne room of the Imperial Palace, in Plaza XV, in central Rio. In 1889, after the declaration of the Republic, the painting was He was transferred to France and returned to Brazil in 1975. After restoration, the canvas became part of the Imperial Museum’s collection two years later.
It was a Moreau painting Recover As part of the national activities commemorating the bicentenary of the birth of Don Pedro II, which was celebrated today, Tuesday. In addition to restoring the work, the museum opened the imposing new Costume Room, which houses the costume worn by the Emperor during his coronation in 1841. This piece is also on display restoration. The new space contains technological resources to interact with visitors. The exhibition “Talk to me about Pedro: in the details of memory” will also be open to the public, with the aim of showing Pedro II who, according to Mauricio Vicente, is not so much the emperor as the carioca (citizen of Rio de Janeiro) who ruled Brazil for 48 years and his many faces. The concept of the exhibition is inspired by the fifteen names associated with Peter II.
“We will show Pedro Less formal and more diverse“The Church, which through its names honors saints, archangels and ancestors, has multiple aspects,” explained Mauricio Vicente.
The exhibition features more than 100 objects, including diaries and documents relating to Don Pedro II’s travels through Brazil and beyond. Also on display are a small linen nightgown that belonged to the king, drawings made by the emperor at different stages of his life, translation studies, volumes from his private library and correspondence exchanged with his father.