Alfred Stevens: Panorama of the Century

A Fragment with Sarah Bernhardt of Stevens'
"Panorama of the Century"

"In the late 1880's , Alfred Stevens embarked on a project that only a man of his energy would undertake in his mid-sixties. The idea came from his friend Henri Gervex. Alfred, his brother Arthur and others put up the capital to paint a 'Panorama of the Century' to be exhibited in the Tuileries Gardens during the Exposition Universelle of 1889. 

The subject was a commemoration of one hundred years of French history from the Revolution of 1789 to the present day, in the form of 641 portraits of all notable figures standing in imaginary, elaborate architectural settings based in the Tuileries where the Rotunda would be erected. The idea of a panorama was not new, but the artist wanted to make accurate portraits of the celebrities included, whether live or from research. It would be nothing less than a pageant of the century.

Gradually the project took shape and a team of assistants was assembled, including Alfred's eldest son Leopold. Months of research were needed, and much time was spent in libraries to find accurate records of women's fashions if, indeed, such documents had been preserved. The sketching of the different scenes had taken two years, and it was time to transfer the four large oil sketches which had been made, and which fortunately have survived, unlike the Panorama itself.

The transfer to the 120-meter-long canvas meant that each drawing had to be enlarged to eight times the original onto large sheets or cartoons. The outline was pricked through in the time-honoured method of the Italian fresco painters. When powder was applied to the holes it went through and the outline was there ready on the canvas to be worked up. Prominent scenes from each reign had been chosen and the team set to work to paint them working among 'a disorderly array of stuffs, uniforms, helmets, and objects of all kinds, the bric-a-brac of a century.' 

When it was completed the visitor to the circular structure could, upon purchase of a one-franc ticket, walk round from the doomed Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette to Napoleon III and beyond, into the present day of the Third Republic. Many people of the day had tried to get themselves included in the last scene offing substantial sums for the privilege. 

Alas, the careful planning did not include what was to happen to the Panorama after the Exposition was over. After the Exposition, the panorama was exhibited in Chicago, Saint Louis, Brussels, and Barcelona. But, unable to secure a permanent exhibition space, Stevens was forced to cut the work into sections for dispersal, in one case, as far away as Florida, where it is now on display in the Ringling Museum. The Ringling’s portion shows prominent dramatists, writers, and musicians, but its real star is Stevens’s adored friend, the actress Sarah Bernhardt. Dressed in the costume she wore as the Queen in Victor Hugo’s Ruy Blas, a stiff, white meringue of a gown which renders her utterly striking in a crowd of men in dark suits"

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Alfred Stevens" by Peter Mitchell.)