Madame Récamier (1928)

The French silent film Madame Récamier (1928) was directed by Gaston Ravel and Tony Lekain and starred Marie Bell. The film was based on the book 'Madame Récamier et ses amis' by Édouard Herriot. The Cinémathèque Française restored the film in the late 1980s. Juliette Récamier (1777-1849) was a fascinating French socialite of the Napoleonic Era. Her salon was a fashionable gathering place for the important political and literary figures of early 19th-century Paris. Two portraits of her became world-famous and have been endlessly reproduced and cited both on stage and on screen.


French postcard by J.R.P.R., Paris, no. 81. Photo: Franco-Film. Marie Bell in Madame Récamier (Gaston Ravel, Tony Lekain, 1928).


French postcard by J.R.P.R., Paris, no. 93. Émile Drain as Napoleon Bonaparte in Madame Récamier (Tony Lekain, Gaston Ravel, 1928).


French postcard by J.R.P.R., Paris, no. 95. François Rozet as the Prince of Prussia in Madame Récamier (Tony Lekain, Gaston Ravel, 1928).


French postcard by Neurdein Frères, Paris, in the Collections ND, no. 97. Madame Récamier (Julie Bernard).


French postcard in the Series Beautés Parisiennes, série 6049. Photo: Reutlinger, Paris. Years later, Cormon would play the elderly Mme Recamier in the homonymous film (1928) by Ravel and Lekain. On this card, Cormon imitates the famous portrait of Recamier (1802) by the painter François Gérard.

Beautiful, accomplished, and possessing a love of literature

The caption on the card above reads (our translation): Madame Récamier (Julie Bernard), born in Lyon in 1777. She married Monsieur Récamier, a wealthy banker, and opened a salon that became a meeting place for a select society. Forced to leave Paris by the Imperial Police, she did not return until after the fall of the empire, settling in Abbaye-aux-Bois (Rue de Sèvres), where her salon was frequented by all the celebrities of the time. Her most loyal friend was Chateaubriand, who remained devoted to her throughout her life. She died in Paris in 1849.

Jeanne-Françoise Julie Adélaïde Bernard was the only child of notary and King's counsellor Jean Bernard and his wife, the former Julie Matton. 'Juliette' was briefly educated at the monastery l'Abbaye royale de la Déserte in Lyon, until her family moved to Paris in 1792. Beautiful, accomplished, and possessing a love of literature, Récamier was described as shy and modest by nature. In 1793, at only 15, she married the 30 years older banker Jacques Récamier (1751-1830), who was initially intimate with her mother. Rumour had it that she was his natural daughter and that he married her at the height of the revolutionary terror to secure her future. The aristocrat assumed that if he were guillotined, she would inherit his money.

Récamier was fortunate and remained alive. For the first two years, Juliette continued to live at home and maintained a chaste and platonic relationship with her husband. Jacques suddenly became very wealthy when he was appointed to the Banque de France in 1800. Juliette Récamier had their house decorated in Etruscan style and furnished in Empire style, and from 1797, she held salons there. She became a society hostess of great charm and wit. From the earliest days of the French Consulate to almost the end of the July Monarchy, Récamier's salon in Paris was one of the chief resorts of literary and political society that followed what was fashionable. The habitués of her house included many former royalists, with others, such as General Jean Bernadotte (later Charles XIV of Sweden and Norway) and General Jean Victor Moreau, who were more or less opposed to the government of Napoleon.

As early as 1802, rumours circulated that Récamier would go bankrupt due to Napoleon’s policies, which did not happen until 1805. His property on Rue de la Chaussée-d'Antin, formerly owned by Jacques Necker, which everyone wanted to visit, was then purchased by Brussels businessman François-Dominique Mosselman. Mme Récamier turned down an appointment as lady-in-waiting to Empress consort Joséphine de Beauharnais three times. She travelled to Coppet in 1806, 1808 and 1809, where she visited Mme Germaine de Staël, a prominent philosopher, woman of letters, political theorist and her best friend. Récamier received a marriage proposal from Prince August of Prussia, but declined when her husband opposed a divorce. Because of her contact with de Staël, who had published a book about Germany, Juliette was also exiled by Napoleon in 1811. Joseph Fouché made it clear to her that she was allowed to leave, but could not return. Napoleon wanted Paris for himself. Récamier lived in Lyon, Châlons-en-Champagne and Chaumont, then moved to Rome, where she befriended officer and statesman Joachim Murat and his wife Carolina Bonaparte.

Back in Paris after Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo in 1815, she once again organised a successful salon and had a relationship with political activist and writer Benjamin Constant, who was appointed a state councillor in 1815. Lucien Bonaparte also visited, as did Jean-Jacques Ampère, Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve and Victor Cousin. Until the end of her life, she maintained a relationship with François René de Chateaubriand, author and Minister of Foreign Affairs, although she did not wish to marry him even after her husband's death. In 1819, she moved to a convent, l'Abbaye-aux-Bois, then located on the outskirts of Paris, now Rue Juliette Récamier. Alphonse de Lamartine, Honoré de Balzac and Victor Hugo read their first works there. The nuns made sure that all visitors had left by midnight. In 1830, her husband died. Her role declined after the July Monarchy. Mme Récamier went blind at the end of her life and died during a cholera epidemic. She was 71. She is buried in the Cimetière de Montmartre.


French postcard by A.N., Paris, no. 29. Photo: Musée du Louvre, no. Catalogue 199. J.L. David, 'Portrait de Mme Récamier'.


French postcard by Croissant, Paris. Photo: Henri Manuel. Pastiche of Jacques-Louis David's painting 'Portrait of Madame Récamier' (1800, unfinished), now at the Musée du Louvre. The welved bench the woman lies on is called a méridienne, which was very popular in the Empire era.


French postcard, no. 13. Photo: Paris qui chante, 1911. Stage scene of La Revue des Folies-Bergère, partly citing Jacques-Louis David's famous and often reproduced painting 'Portrait of Madame Récamier' (1800, unfinished), now at the Musée du Louvre. The singer and actress Marie Marville (1873-1961) plays Récamier.


German postcard by Verlag Hermann Leiser, Berlin, no. 1534. Photo: F. Grainer, Munich. Rita Sacchetto in a tableau vivant of the famous portrait of Juliette 'Madame' Récamier (1800) by Jacques-Louis David.


Spanish postcard by Amattler Marca Luna, series 5, no. 1. Photo: Caesar Film. Francesca Bertini as Floria Tosca in Tosca (Alfredo De Antoni, 1918). A citation of the famous portrait of Madame Récamier by J.L. David.


French postcard by Le Deley, Paris. Photo: U.C.I. / Gaumont / Tiber Film. Hesperia in Il figlio di Madame Sans-Gêne (Baldassarre Negroni, 1921). Adapted from the novel by Emile Moreau. Here, Hesperia, as Madame Sans-Gêne, is portrayed similarly to François Gérard's portrait of Juliette Récamier.

The muse of painters and writers

Paris salon hostess and society figure Juliette Récamier (1777-1849) cultivated a public persona as a great beauty, and her fame quickly spread across Europe. She befriended many intellectuals. Throughout her life, Juliette was the muse of painters and writers, resulting in countless portraits of her. Her friend Germaine de Staël described her in her novel 'Corinne'. Two paintings of her by Jacques-Louis David and Neoclassical painter François Gérard became world famous. Joseph Chinara made a marble bust of Récamier (ca. 1806). Italian artist Antonio Canova even made two busts of her.

Juliette Récamier was an icon of neoclassicism. Jacques-Louis David and François Gérard both portrayed her in her white cotton dress in Greek style and with her hair pinned up. David began his stern portrait of her in 1800. David painted her on a sofa or chaise longue on which she liked to recline. Both the painting and the sofa became so fashionable that the sofa was named after her, the récamier. However, Récamier was dissatisfied with what she thought was David's cold approach, and she commissioned his pupil, François Gérard, to make a new portrait of her. When he knew of this, David decided to leave her portrait unfinished.

François Gérard portrayed Récamier in a classic but natural environment. Her graceful curves andher complexion blend with the shapes and colours of her surroundings. Wikipedia: "Her pose, with her body slightly contorted, her neck left uncovered by the wide neckline of her empire dress, which barely covers her breasts, and her bare feet, have an unmistakable erotic effect and seems new compared to other representations of women of the time. Here, the eroticism is nuanced by the reflective facial expression of the sitter and the apparent quietness of the place, which could be a bathroom, protected from outside by a curtain. There is something thoughtful and intimate in Récamier's look, but at the same time, it appears somewhat suggestive. The tension between the conflicting emotions seems to give the painting a kind of 'aura'." Gérard's portrait remained in Récamier's drawing room for several years, until she gave it to her admirer, Prince Augustus of Prussia, in 1843. In 1860, it was acquired from his heirs by the Musée Carnavalet in Paris.

Both portraits of Madame Récamier have been endlessly reproduced and cited both on stage and on screen. David's painting was cited on stage, e.g. at the Revue des Folies-Bergère in 1911. Two silent films were made on the life of Récamier. The first was the German film Madame Récamier (Joseph Delmont, 1920) starring Fern Andra, Bernd Aldor, Albert Steinrück and Ferdinand von Alten as Napoleon. The film was written by Hans Gaus and produced by Fern Andra and Georg Bluen for the companies Fern Andra-Film and Sächsische Kunstfilm. Eight years later, a French film followed, Madame Récamier (Gaston Ravel, Tony Lekain, 1928) with Marie Bell, Françoise Rosay, Edmond Van Daële and Émile Drain as Napoleon.

The surrealist artist René Magritte was also fascinated by Juliette Récamier. In 1950, he created two new paintings based on the portraits by Jacques-Louis David and François Gerard, in which he replaced Juliette Récamier with a coffin. In doing so, he parodied the stiffness of neoclassical art, but also paid tribute to Madame Récamier. In 'Creatures in an Alphabet', Djuna Barnes wrote about David's painting:

The Seal, she lounges like a bride,
Much too docile, there’s no doubt;
Madame Récamier, on side,
(if such she has), and bottom out.


French journal La Petite Illustration, no. 385, 9 June 1928. A special on the French silent film Madame Récamier (Gaston Ravel, Tony Lekain, 1928). On the cover: Marie Bell as Juliette Récamier.


French journal La Petite Illustration, no. 385, 9 June 1928. A special on the French silent film Madame Récamier (Gaston Ravel, Tony Lekain, 1928). Here are the two directors, photos by Maniezzi and G.L. Manuel.


French journal La Petite Illustration, no. 385, 9 June 1928. A special on the French silent film Madame Récamier (Gaston Ravel, Tony Lekain, 1928). A reception at the Palace of Fontainebleau, at the beginning of the French Empire under Napoleon.


French journal La Petite Illustration, no. 385, 9 June 1928. A special on the French silent film Madame Récamier (Gaston Ravel, Tony Lekain, 1928). Françoise Rosay as Madame de Stael and Marie Bell as Juliette Récamier.


French journal La Petite Illustration, no. 385, 9 June 1928. A special on the French silent film Madame Récamier (Gaston Ravel, Tony Lekain, 1928). The Salon of Mme Récamier, in 1848, at Abbey-sur-Bois (Paris). This was one year before she died in 1849. Nelly Cormon plays the elder Mme Récamier in her last role. On her right hand is Charles Le Bargy as Viscount Chateaubriand, who is in love with her. Above them hangs François Gérard's famous portrait of Mme Récamier (1802).


French journal La Petite Illustration, no. 385, 9 June 1928. A special on the French silent film Madame Récamier (Gaston Ravel, Tony Lekain, 1928). Here, Charles le Bargy as Viscount Chateaubriand, who in vain asks Récamier in marriage.

Sources: Jeroen de Baaij (Kunst Vensters - Dutch), Britannica, Wikipedia (Dutch and English) and IMDb.