Cesare-Auguste Detti

A world apart from the Greek, Roman and mythological scenes so popular in the late nineteenth century, courtly genre scenes satisfied nostalgia for a more recent, local history. Detti’s finely painted La Fête portrays a gathering of the nobility wearing elaborately detailed costumes dyed a range of saturated hues; just as brilliantly-colored are the overflowing floral displays and bouquets loosely held by the children in attendance, many who look out self-consciously toward the viewer.  The majority of guests are absorbed in the merriment, only a handful stopping to welcome the cardinal and his ecclesial entourage. Like his contemporaries Jean Georges Vibert, Georges Croegert, and François Brunery, Detti injected irreverent comedy into this genre work, which shows the pomp and circumstance loved by clergy while also subtly mocking the piety of the faithful focused more on a dance step than His Eminence’s arrival.  Yet the overall emphasis here is on the pleasures of living well, based factually on the court culture of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Detti closely studied the history of the great courts of Europe and owned an extensive array of period costumes and objets d’art (there remain several photographs showing the artist dressed as a cavalier, and his collections of period armour, statuary, and tableware were carefully inventoried). Indeed, the present work accurately replicates the elaborate decorative programs of eighteenth century Rococo interior design, which experienced a revival in the mid- to late nineteenth century. The homes of Detti’s patrons, many of them prominent members of European and American society, included great entry spaces proclaiming the owner’s wealth and cultural refinement with decorative programs of giltwood, sculpture, and yards of fine fabric draping the walls. These sumptuous spaces often held the best of society enjoying flamboyant entertainment. The pinnacle of social activity from the 1880s to the turn of the century, grand costume balls were an ideal event in which to demonstrate refined taste and sociability (Arnold Lewis, James Turner and Steven McQuillin, The Opulent Interiors of the Gilded Age, New York, 1987, p. 10).