The Soul Breaking the Bonds That Tie It to the Earth
Pierre-Paul Prud'hon (1758-1823) · c. 1821-1823
A female figure rises through darkness, her arms flung upward, breaking the chains that bind her to the ground. She is the soul, and the earth she leaves is barely sketched below her. Much of the canvas is unfinished: the figure is modelled in Prud'hon's soft, smoky manner, while around her the background remains a rough underpainting. That state is part of its power: the soul really does seem to be escaping from something unformed.
Prud'hon painted it in the last two years of his life, between eighteen twenty one and eighteen twenty three, after the suicide of Constance Mayer, the painter who had been his companion and collaborator; he never recovered from her death, and the picture is generally read as his answer to it. It was sold at his estate sale in May eighteen twenty three. It passed through several collections, including that of the painter Eugène Devéria, and stayed in private hands until it was classified a national treasure in twenty eighteen. The Société des Amis du Louvre then gave it to the museum, and it was allocated to the Louvre in twenty nineteen.
Did You Know? Prud'hon began the picture after the suicide of his companion Constance Mayer in eighteen twenty one and left it unfinished when he died two years later.
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