Funerary Monument for the Marquis de Tourney (for the Chapel of the Château de la Falaise) (1787–1793): Art, History and Details

Funerary Monument for the Marquis de Tourney (for the Chapel of the Château de la Falaise) (1787–1793) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is François-Nicolas Delaistre (French, 1746–1832).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

The Marquis Gallyot de Tourney commissioned this sculpture to serve as his funeral monument. It depicts a young woman gesturing with one hand toward an urn bearing the inscription Voilà ce coeur qui nous a tant aimé (Here is the heart that loved us so). The marquis specified that the figure should be a rosière, a virtuous woman of humble circumstances, a choice likely informed by the writings of Enlightenment philosophers, especially Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who championed greater social equality and democratic reform.

Object facts

• Title: Funerary Monument for the Marquis de Tourney (for the Chapel of the Château de la Falaise)
• Date: 1787–1793
• Creator attribution: François-Nicolas Delaistre (French, 1746–1832)
• Culture: France, Paris
• Type: Sculpture
• Technique: marble
• Dimensions: Overall: 170 x 85.4 x 49.5 cm (66 15/16 x 33 5/8 x 19 1/2 in.)
• Collection: Sculpture
• Department: European Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 2002.53

Collection credit

The Severance and Greta Millikin Purchase Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Cleveland Museum of Art, “Recent Acquisitions Press Release,” June 25, 2002, Cleveland Museum of Art Archives. Published as: Figure of a Young Girl.
• "Major Acquisitions 2000-2005." Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine 45, no. 6 (July/August 2005): 6-17.
• Clark, Alvin L., ed. Tradition & Transitions: Eighteenth-century French Art from the Horvitz Collection. [Boston, Massachusetts]: The Horvitz Collection, [2017].

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.