This work by Charles Royer represents the goods found in the grave of a great Celtic aristocrat buried circa 500 BCE. Inside the burial mound, excavated by H.E. Millon in 1880, were a bronze mirror, an Attic ceramic kantharos and an Etruscan bronze stamnos. These three imported objects are evidence of the trade links between Celtic Gaul and the Mediterranean world. They are currently housed at the Musée d’Archéologie Nationale, in Saint-Germain-en-Laye.

This bas-relief is thought to have originally been part of a rood screen erected in Langres Cathedral in the mid-16th century. It depicts the martyrdom of Mammes of Caesarea, a 3rd century saint who lived in Cappadocia, in what is now eastern Turkey. Mammes preached Christianity and read the Holy Scriptures to wild animals. After his arrest, he was cast into the flames and left to burn for three days, but emerged unscathed. The Cathedral was dedicated to him in the 8th century, following its acquisition of a relic, a bone believed to have come from the saint’s neck. Langres Cathedral was named after Mammes and benefited from its association with this popular saint.

Little is known about the life of Jean Duvet, a silversmith active in Langres and Dijon. However, Duvet was one of the first to apply burin techniques to engravings. Some seventy odd prints are attributed to him today.

Although Duvet had seen Italian engravings by Mantegna, Primaticcio, Rosso and Raphael, he showed little interest in perspective. His compositions were initially comparatively light and airy but became denser and more dramatic over time. He developed a deeply original style. The saturated space, and overlapping, contorted bodies, lend great expressive intensity to his work.

Duvet’s cycle of engravings on the Book of Revelation is one of his major achievements. It follows in the footsteps of Albrecht Dürer’s (1471–1528) illustrations of the last book of the New Testament in his 1498 Apocalypse. However, Duvet took a rather unusual approach: his engravings interpret rather than illustrate the Book of Revelation, and deviate somewhat from the order of its chapters. Duvet started on his twenty-three engravings circa 1546. They were published in Lyon in 1561, probably after his death.

Originally from Spain, the painter Jusepe de Ribera lived in Rome between 1612 and 1616. During that time, he adopted the manner and style of Caravaggio, active in the Italian capital from 1592 to 1607. This painting is a major early work by the Spanish artist. It shows Christ debating the doctors of the faith in the Temple. Works on this theme traditionally place Christ at the centre of the canvas, but Ribera positions him to the right, dividing the composition into two groups of figures separated by a diagonal line. The column reminds the viewer that the child is the son of God and symbolically connects the earthly and heavenly realms.

The child’s interlocutors respond to his words with gestures and comments. Reactions to the main exchange feed into other discussions in the background. Christ is teaching the doctors: some listen, others think or speak. The Word is physically and symbolically spreading across the room. The figures in the foreground form a semi-circle around a central void. The diagonal opens up the scene towards a dark background where other heads emerge. The gestures and faces are individual, the postures varied. Some figures turn their backs to the viewer. They are imposing and wrapped in sculptural cloaks. The whole gives an impression of verisimilitude, breaking with idealised Renaissance models.

The son of Langres painter Jean Gillot (1639–1711), Claude Gillot was a painter, engraver and illustrator largely based in Paris. His works broach a wide range of themes, including religious subjects, notably Le Christ près d’être attaché à la croix (Christ Nailed on the Cross) his reception piece for the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture in 1715; mythological subjects, notably Embarquement pour Cythère (Voyage to Cythera) genre painting, notably Les deux carrosses (The Two Carriages, 1707); and stage paintings, notably La scène des Tréteaux (The Stage Boards, circa 1711), which can be seen at the Maison des Lumières Denis Diderot. His output shows great imaginative range, including numerous representations of farces, the theatre, witchcraft and bacchanalia. Claude Gillot was the teacher of Antoine Watteau (1684–1721), who acquired his taste for scenes featuring the stage, ballet and gallantry.

Originally from Langres, the painter Jules-Claude Ziegler studied under Dominique Ingres (1780–1867) and is best known for the frescoes he was commissioned to paint at the Parisian church of Sainte Marie Madeleine – aka La Madeleine – in 1837. Ziegler was a prolific and multi-talented artist. His output also included photography from the early 1840s, and glazed stoneware ceramics, which he made at the studio he founded near Beauvais.

The armoured woman crowned with laurels is an allegorical representation of Imagination. Ziegler based her on his Joan of Arc, in the apse of La Madeleine. Under the allegorical figure’s arm is a canvas with sketch portraits of Dante, Raphael and Michelangelo. In the foreground is an orb with the inscription “Imagination is the queen of the world”.

Ziegler’s clean lines, bold palette and masterful lighting effects led him to be seen as the leader of a new school indebted to Spanish painting.

A woman steps through her neighbour’s open door and discovers a scene of desolation: a mother’s lifeless, emaciated body, probably starved or frozen to death. At her bedside are two children, still alive under a warming ray of spring sunshine. Viewers can surmise – but are not told – the mother’s private drama. As they take in the bare walls of her very modest interior and the pride she took in her well-kept home, they can guess that she was very alone and that any food was for the children first… This scene was inspired by a passage from the poem “Les Pauvres Gens” (The Poor) in Victor Hugo’s La Légende des siècles (The Legend of the Centuries), written between 1855 and 1876.
Alizard, a Langres painter, wished to bear witness to the harsh realities of life. Painted in the spirit of mid-19th century realism, the work displays the period’s taste for shocking news items.

This portrait of a woman was believed to be by Jean Ranc until 1983, when it was reattributed to Nicolas de Largillière (1656–1746). Largillière was one of France’s three major portraitists between the end of the reign of Louis XIV and the first half of the 18th century, together with François de Troy (1645–1730) and Hyacinthe Rigaud (1659–1743). The sitter is depicted as Diana the Huntress accompanied by her dogs. From the Renaissance onward, ladies were often portrayed in the guise of classical figures, in order to extol their beauty and character. Such portraits lent the attributes of divinities, or even saints, to the real persons they featured and were very popular at the time. The work’s vertical composition and refined colour plate, together with the elegance of the sitter’s pose, suggest the influence of English portraiture, notably Van Dyck and Peter Lely, who had a strong influence on Largillière’s generation.

Langres cutlery goes back to the 15th century and reached its golden age in the 18th century, at a time when tableware underwent rapid change. The pieces in the Musée d’Art et d’Histoire exhibit the variety of materials used to manufacture cutlery knives and their many uses.

The knife has a handle inlaid with mother-of-pearl and a folding blade at each end, one steel and one silver. The precious metal made it possible to slice through pieces of fruit without their acids damaging the blade. The knife is stamped “au bâton royal”, the motto of the Béligné family.

Between 1742 and 1744, Jacques Lallemant founded a faience manufacture in Aprey, a village around fifteen kilometres away from Langres. With the help of his brother Joseph, he produced fine faience ware prized for its technical and aesthetic qualities. In the 18th century, Aprey began to face competition from Sinceny, Strasbourg and Marseille. Aprey faience ware was manufactured until the end of the 19th century, when it became less sought-after.

In this large work by the Lyon painter Michel Dumas, the iconic persona of Fra Angelico incarnates both the figure of the artist and the painter’s art, through his mastery of his craft. This is a portrait of a painter, as much as a friar. We see a pensive man caught in a private moment – is he concentrating, weary, or in the throes of doubt? Notice the pot of spilt paint at his feet. Fra Angelico looks very human, fragile even. The execution is three-dimensional and clear, and the composition careful if somewhat stilted. Dumas belonged to a generation when painters were master craftsmen capable of wielding the brush with utmost precision.

This work by Jules-René Hervé – “the painter of provincial poetry” – represents a Corpus Christi procession in Langres. On this feast day celebrating the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, a procession used to march down streets bedecked with flowers, garlands and banners. The painting influenced by Impressionism was awarded a gold medal at the Salon des Artistes Français in 1925.

The provenance of this parclose screen is uncertain. It was dismantled during the Revolution and decorated a garden before coming into the hands of the Langres Historical and Archaeological Society in 1847. Its similarities with the ornamental repertoire of various architectural vestiges conserved in Langres Cathedral suggest that it may be linked to refurbishment work carried out in the second half of the 16th century.

The screen combines ornamental effects of transparency with a clear structure. The fine stonework shows great craftsmanship. Some of the screen’s many ornaments were inspired by the architectural works of Jacques Androuet Du Cerceau (circa 1515– 1585); others, notably the plant and animal motifs, as well as the angels on the open-work, can be found on furniture.

The screen probably dates from between 1565 and 1570. Its dimensions match those of some of the Cathedral’s chapels. The pre-eminence of the angel motif may suggest that it used to screen off a funerary chapel or a chapel connected to the choir.

Presented at the Paris Salon of 1827, this work illustrates “The Shepherd and the Sea”, a fable by Jean de la Fontaine (1621–1695) on the pitfalls of the quest for worldly riches.

The painting hesitates between classicism and romanticism. The classical literary allusions, moral message, and composition – whose static clarity is typical of Turpin de Crissé’s work – all point to the classical world and pictorial classicism. Yet, this is also a romantic work: the shepherd cuts a small figure against a vast wilderness, his bare flesh exposed to animals and rocks. This imagery conveys a sense of newfound virtue, innocence or chosen humility – i.e. notions that conjure a romantic vision, even as they speak to the moral of the fable. The shepherd seems to have renounced worldly riches and found peace in his sunny, peaceful retreat, a calm sea in the distance. His candid, almost virginal nakedness and the untouched natural environment are also classical references.

The work does not only owe its remarkably poetic quality to its imagery, but also to its execution: the treatment of the bushes and rocks is fine and precise, and the palette delicate, especially the shades of pale blue in the background. The quality of the light, the effects of translucency and the play of light and shadow on the rocks, are central to Turpin de Crissé’s work. This picture of a man at peace again evokes a muted version of romanticism, typical of a painter whose classical training and education taught him to avoid the excesses of passion and drama.

The work was so well received by the public that the lithographer and print dealer Augustin-François Lemaître (1797–1870) made an engraving, which was exhibited at the Salon of 1837.

Girault de Prangey painted this picture after a long journey that took him to Italy, the Maghreb and Spain (February 1831– autumn 1834), with a stop in Palermo (Sicily) in the first half of 1834. Dated 1835 or 1839, the work was painted for the Salon of 1839, on his return to France.

Documentary accuracy was as paramount to Girault de Prangey in this painting as in his drawings and watercolours. The architectural features, ornaments and materials of the chapel are meticulously recorded, and the use of perspective is precise. Artists sometimes deliberately resorted to miniaturism in order to make the lithographic transcription of their paintings of monuments as detailed as possible. However, the focus on descriptive accuracy does not preclude picturesque details, for example the figures sitting on the steps of the sanctuary.

Born into a modest Jewish family, in Luxeuil-les-Bains (Haute-Saône), Adler was a realist painter and a follower of the “naturalism” movement. Mythological, historical and religious paintings were of little interest to him: his preferred subjects were workers, miners, diggers, housewives and peasants, pubs and railway scenes, or social movements and strikes. He was a painter of the people and his portrayals of ordinary, sometimes downtrodden members of society brimmed with humanity, as in the case of this country postman out on his round. His focus on social issues and the working classes earned him the sobriquet of “painter of humble folk”. Jules Adler’s art was part of a wider commitment to progressive political causes, for example in the Dreyfus Affair in 1899. From 1888, his works were regularly exhibited at the Paris Salons – notably the Salon d’automne from 1903 – as well as in provincial towns, including Langres.

Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson, Marquise de Pompadour (1722–1764) and a favourite of Louis XV, supported the publication of the first two volumes of the Encyclopédie and encouraged the publication of further volumes, despite a ruling to the contrary by the Conseil d’État on 7 February 1752. Commissioned in 1751, the original pastel by Maurice-Quentin de La Tour was exhibited at the Salon of 1755. On the table are copies of volume IV of the Encyclopédie (1754), Voltaire’s La Henriade (1728) and Montesquieu’s De l’Esprit des lois (1748). Guarini’s tragicomedy Il Pastor Fido, a globe, engravings, drawings and musical scores complete this portrait of the intellectual pursuits of the Marquise.

In this novel, the adventures of Jacques and his master unfold within an undefined narrative framework: “Where were they going? Does anyone really know where they’re going?” Diderot takes great liberties with the rules of novel writing. He leads his main character, Jacques, from one encounter to the next and digresses in order to confuse his reader and force a reaction. Initially published in instalments in the rather confidential Correspondance littéraire, the novel only reached a wider readership after his death in 1796.

This telescope is unsigned. Comparative analyses suggest that it was probably made by Claude Paris, a leading Parisian manufacturer of telescopes and microscopes from 1733 onward. The Gregorian reflecting telescope is composed of a main brass barrel and two optic devices. A primary concave steel mirror located at the bottom of the main barrel reflects the light – and therefore the image – back up to a smaller secondary concave mirror. This image can be observed at the other end of the telescope through an aperture at the centre of the primary mirror. The image is seen through the lenses of the eyepiece, which is the narrow barrel at the end of the main body of the telescope. A worm screw fitted along the length of the main barrel helps to adjust the distance between the two mirrors and focus the image. This telescope was used for both terrestrial and astronomical viewing because the image was not inverted.

Made in a workshop of “celestial mechanics”, this instrument illustrates the spread of the heliocentric model championed by Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543). The 18th century gradually saw this new model of the solar system gain acceptance, despite years of opposition from the Church, which championed Ptolemy’s Earth-centric model. The realisation that the Earth was one of several planets revolving around the sun indirectly called into question God’s central place in the universe. The idea that the Earth revolved around the Sun, rather than the other way around, gained traction in Diderot’s time. It was one of the great scientific advances of the Age of Enlightenment.

1746 saw the anonymous publication of Diderot’s first original work, Pensées philosophiques. In this book, a response to Blaise Pascal’s (1623–1662) Pensées, Diderot toys somewhat inconclusively with deism and atheism: “I should be expected to seek the truth, but not to find it”. Diderot’s free-ranging and incisive thoughts are couched in small short dialogues. Diderot rejected dogmatism in all its forms:

“As I looked for proofs, I found problems. The books that motivated me to believe also gave me reasons to disbelieve. They were an arsenal of arguments for both. In these works, I saw deists arm themselves against atheists; deists and atheists lambast Jews; atheists, deists and Jews castigate Christians; Christian, deists, atheists and Jews pillory Moslems; a multitude of Christian sects attacking Christians; and sceptics alone against them all….

The book was banned.

Still in its original box, this instrument, which is signed “Duhamel A Paris”, was used by land surveyors and topographers. The graduated semi-circular limb is mounted on a staff via a ball-and-socket joint, and fitted with two alidades, one fixed and the other movable. It was used to measure angles between objects located on the same horizontal or vertical plane. According to the Encyclopédie, the “pinnules help to align the alidade with the object to be observed, and the slits are used to discern certain parts of the object in a very specific manner; this is why the slits – which are rather wide to allow the object to be seen more easily – have a thin metal blade or ‘hair’ stretching across the midline, from top to bottom”.

The graphometer was used to draw the mid-18th-century Cassini map of the Kingdom of France.

Jean-Baptiste Deshays won the Grand Prix de Rome in 1751 and trained at the École royale des élèves protégés before leaving for Rome in 1754. On his return to France in 1758, he was admitted to the Académie royale, where he was accepted as a history painter in 1759, the year that marked the start of his official career, following his acclaimed entry to the Salon.

Deshays was one of Diderot’s favourite artists: “I could not wait to get to Deshays. This painter – my friend – is in my opinion the nation’s greatest painter […]” This work was a sketch for a large and now destroyed painting presented at the Salon of 1761. Commenting on the painting, Diderot wrote: “The figures are so well-distributed, characterised and draped! How simple and grandiose everything is! What awful but beautiful poetry! […]”.

These lines point to Diderot’s intellectual and aesthetic priorities in his art criticism. They tell us what he essentially looked for in art: a painting that expressed the “passions”, figures that conveyed powerful emotions (“simple and grandiose”) and a sense of drama (“He imagines striking things”), a felicitous composition, great powers of imagination, and the presence of historical and literary references (to Corneille in this case).

The works of Jean III Michelin are little known. This is partly because there were several painters of the same name: he was born in Langres in 1623, in a family of painters, several generations of whom shared the same first name. He travelled to Rome in 1650 and was admitted to the French Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture in 1660. A Protestant, he left Paris in 1681 for the Court of Hanover in Germany. Like the Parisian painters Antoine, Louis and Mathieu Le Nain, Michelin painted religious scenes and scenes of everyday life (peasant interiors, markets, inns, etc.) but his works are distinctive for their stylistic naivety and sincerity. The clothes are those of seventeenth-century peasants and there is great attention to realistic details. However, the composition is somewhat clumsy, and the characters are rather stiff, with frozen facial expressions. They look isolated, as though disconnected from each other. Michelin painted several versions of the Adoration of the Shepherds, all of them with the Holy Infant at the centre of a circle of onlookers.

This composition is part of a ceiling design for the chapel of the Château de Versailles. It was commissioned in 1672 from Charles Le Brun, who was First Painter to the King and responsible for interior decorations at Versailles from 1661. Le Brun worked on this design until the project was shelved in 1683, after Louvois (1641–1691), who did not get along with him, took over from Colbert (1619–1683) as superintendent of Bâtiments, Arts et Manufactures de France. Le Brun repeatedly tried to regain Louvois’ favour and complete the work, but was unsuccessful. The Langres museum’s painting covers around two-thirds of the overall design, which is framed by a balustrade. The other third of the design represents the Glory of God and is located next to the altar of the Versailles chapel. At the centre of the complex composition of the Langres museum’s painting is Saint Michael slaying a seven-headed monster that symbolises the seven deadly sins. Below him are three figures in freefall: the Devil (a sceptre in hand), the (deathly pale) Lust of the Flesh and the Fallen World (seen from the back). Around Saint Michael, the Angels sound their trumpets to announce the Triumph of God, and push the rebellious Angels to their fall. At the sides, the Shields of Virtue fight the Vices. The influence of Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640) is clear in the treatment of the groups of angels, and in the figure of Saint Michael, inspired by Rubens’ The Fall of the Damned (circa 1620).

Usually associated with rather more peaceful compositions, Jean Tassel presents a very dynamic image of Archangel Michael slaying the dragon, an allegorical figure of evil. The suspended, frozen movement of the intricate drapery is characteristic of part of the painter’s output. The mood is neither contemplative nor gentle: the work does not shy away from convention or theatricality as it asserts the triumph of faith. The powerful use of colour also foregrounds the victorious figure: the reds and blues of his clothing are emphasized by deep dark shadows, echoing the flames and smoke in the background.

Tassel occasionally drew inspiration from widely circulated engravings of compositions by other artists. Here, the figure of the archangel is indebted to Rémy Vuibert’s (1607–1652) engraving of a painting by Guido Reni (1575–1642). As for the figure of the devil, it is borrowed from the work of engraver Jean Ganière (circa 1615–1666).

Originally from Leiden, Cornelis de Heem lived in Antwerp and mostly painted still lives, following in the footsteps of his father Jan Davidsz de Heem (1606–1684). Still lives enjoyed great popularity in the 17th century, especially in Dutch and Flemish schools. These elaborate decorative compositions often carried a moral message. The peeled lemon was a ubiquitous symbol of the passage of time and a reminder of mortality.

All eyes – and the light – fall on the infant, as his mother presents him to the two shepherds on the left. The vine branches at the feet of Christ allude to the Gospel according to John: “I am the vine, you are the branches”. The background is in the shadows but not dark, which fosters a mood of serene intimacy and invites contemplation. A very similar composition on the same subject by the artist’s friend Carlo Saraceni (1579–1620) may have influenced this work.
Originally from Lorraine, Jean Leclerc spent the first part of his life in Venice, where he met Saraceni. He also spent some time in Rome with Saraceni between 1612 and 1616. Both artists were influenced by Caravaggio’s (1571–1610) lighting effects. Leclerc’s Italian works exhibit his debt to Caravaggio’s and Saraceni’s powerful style. In 1622, Leclerc returned to Nancy, where he worked for the Dukes of Lorraine. He remained faithful to the spirit of Caravaggio’s style, but his play with light and dark was more muted.
Under the Ancien Régime, this painting, which originally may have been an altarpiece, hung in the Saint-André side chapel of Langres Cathedral. Some of the works decorating it were commissioned by a Duke of Lorraine, which may explain why the chapel included a painting by one of his court painters. Leclerc also received commissions from the Jesuits and the Carmelites of Chaumont. Towards the end of his life, he trained a number of artists, including the Langres painter Jean Tassel (1608–1667).

The painter and sculptor Gustave Courbet was the leader of Realism, a movement that emerged in the mid-19th century in reaction to Romanticism. In this stormy landscape, with its threatening sky and palette of blues and greys, patches of white emphasise the clouds and spume, as waves crash against a dark rocky cliff that turns deep red at the top. Two birds struggle against the wind at the centre of the painting. The dark colour scheme and thick brushstrokes convey the power of the elements, lending raw intensity to the scene. This work, which probably dates back to the early 1870s, depicts the sea at Étretat, the Normandy resort where Courbet painted a series of seascapes. Paintings on this subject were sought after and several of them, including this one, were either produced by Courbet in collaboration with his studio or painted entirely by a member of his studio. A brownish-red signature is clearly visible in the lower left-hand corner. It may have been added later for commercial reasons.

This stormy landscape was part of the collection of the brothers Charles (1848–1920) and Joseph (1850–1941) Royer, local Langres art collectors who built up large collections of paintings, decorative arts and books in the late 19th and the first half of the 20th centuries. A member of the Société Historique et Archéologique de Langres which ran the museum, Charles Royer may have purchased this painting at the same time as he acquired Courbet’s Une combe dans le Jura on behalf of the museum, at an 1897 exhibition of Courbet’s works, at the École des Beaux-arts in Paris.