High comedy and hot air
I was sure this was a recent painting in fin de siecle clothing when I first saw it, but it was done in 1880.
What fooled me about Frederik Hendrik Kaemmerer’s “Une Ascension en l’An VIII” was the slapstick played out in the crowd, but I guess slapstick is older than I thought, and the Dutchman was merely displaying his gifts as an illustrator — and perhaps having a poke at “high” society too.
“Year VIII” was 1799 on the French republican calendar, and the Parisian scene depicted recalls the many social events that centred on balloon flights following the first one in 1783 by Jean-François Rozière and François Laurent, aboard a hot-air craft built by the celebrated Montgolfier brothers.
A century later Kaemmerer had some fun with the trendy social-climbers assembled to witness the novelty of manned flight. While the gentleman and lady rise aloft with dignity and a show of patriotism, some of their friends, seeking a higher vantage point of their own, tumble miserably low.
Kaemmerer probably knew that ballooning was not without farce. As Sotheby’s London pointed out in the catalogue for its June 3 sale of 19th-century European paintings (where the advance estimate on this one topped out at £60,000), just two years after that first flight, Jean Pierre Blanchard and the John Jeffries had to shed some clothing as well as equipment to get across the English Channel.
That same Sotheby’s sale had another balloon painting, but my gosh this is borderline. The auction house was nevertheless still expecting someone to pay up to £25,000 for Emile Friant’s “Voyage a l’Infini”, rendered in 1899.
Sotheby’s muttered about “dream imagery and symbolism”, but this is just bad art.
Someone called RauAntiques has posted a video titled “The Minuet by Frederik Kaemmerer” on YouTube. It’s rather nice, with a commentary. No dance music, though.
