Melle. De Sombreuil

Zephirin Belliard

This lithograph by Zephirin Belliard is of Mademoiselle de Sombreuil who was born Jeanne Jacques Marie Anne Françoise de Virot at the château de Leychoisier on the 14th February 1768. As the daughter of an artistocrat she stood with her father when he was imprisoned during the revolution. While in prison she was at his side on the 2nd September when a makeshift tribunal and mob arrived at the Abbaye as part of the infamous Prison Massacres. She is reported to have drunk a glass of blood, taken from one of the executed prisoners, in order to save her fathers life.

Unfortunately for the heroic Mademoiselle de Sombreuil, her father and younger brother, Stanislas (1768-1794) were again arrested a year later and she would share their imprisonment at Port-Libre and Sainte-Pélagie before the Marquis and Stanislas were guillotined on the 17th June 1794. in 1796 she was married the Comte de Villelum, but there were no children. She died in Avignon on the 15th of May 1823.

This impression is from the estate of author, museum director and collector Michael Wentworth (1938-2002) who wrote the catalogue raisonné on James Tissot. His stamp is at the lower right corner (not in Lugt).

Belliard was a printer as well as an artist and the young Honore Daumier was trained by him in lithography, the rest is history.