Jeanne DELAGE
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Sculptor.
Jeanne Delage, daughter of a Charente shipowner, had what almost every woman of her time lacked: the means to train and to exhibit. A sculptor, she showed her work in 1913 at the Salon d'Automne, the young institution that welcomed the moderns, then from 1920 at the Salon des artistes français, on the academic circuit. We owe her one of the finest epitaphs in the cemetery.
The story
Born in 1877 at Tonnay-Charente, Jeanne Marguerite Delage was the daughter of Jean-François Fernand Delage, a merchant and shipowner, and of Pauline Mathilde Coudert de Prévignaud. The port lived on river and sea trade, and its shipowners formed a comfortable middle class turned towards the Atlantic: a daughter of that world had the means to train and to exhibit, which most women of her generation did not.
She was a sculptor, and exhibited at the 1913 Salon d'Automne — the young, open institution founded in 1903, which took in the moderns when the official salons resisted them. She then became a life member of the Salon des artistes français and exhibited there regularly from 1920, in the academic circuit this time. To go from the Salon d'Automne to the Salon des artistes français is to cross the whole distance that then separated the avant-garde from the official institution.
She also showed at the Salon des femmes peintres et sculpteurs. The very existence of that salon tells the difficulty: created in 1881 because women were pushed to the margins of the ordinary salons, it gave them a space of their own — an ambiguous solution, which granted visibility while confirming the separation. The École des beaux-arts, for its part, opened to women only in 1897.
She died in Paris on 5 September 1954, at seventy-seven, and lies in Division 89, avenue Aguado. The grave is her family's: her mother Mathilde Delage, née Coudert de Prévignaud (1858-1927), appears there under an inscription of insistent tenderness, while the sculptor gets no more than her name and her dates.
The two epitaphs on this grave answer one another. On the front: “À nos parents vénérés. Ici dorment ceux dont le souvenir orne ma vie.” — to our revered parents; here sleep those whose memory adorns my life. Then, for her mother, who died twenty-seven years before her: “À l'épouse adorée, à la mère vénérée et chérie, vivant en nos cœurs et en nos pensées.” Nothing there speaks of sculpture — the artist daughter disappears behind the loving one.
The grave
Two epitaphs that answer each other, and not a word about a profession. On the front: “À nos parents vénérés. Ici dorment ceux dont le souvenir orne ma vie.” — to our revered parents; here sleep those whose memory adorns my life. Then, for her mother: “À l'épouse adorée à la mère vénérée et chérie, vivant en nos cœurs et en nos pensées. Mathilde DELAGE, née COUDERT de PREVIGNAUD, 30 septembre 1858, 13 mai 1927.” — to the adored wife, the revered and beloved mother, living in our hearts and in our thoughts. The sculptor vanishes entirely behind the daughter — neither inscription mentions her work.
On site, do not miss
The epitaph on the front is one of the finest in the cemetery: “Ici dorment ceux dont le souvenir orne ma vie.” — here sleep those whose memory adorns my life. Nothing there indicates that the woman who had it carved was a sculptor.
Visitors' questions
Where is Jeanne Delage's grave?
In Division 89, avenue Aguado, thirteenth row. You notice it by its epitaph: “À nos parents vénérés. Ici dorment ceux dont le souvenir orne ma vie.” — to our revered parents; here sleep those whose memory adorns my life — one of the finest in the cemetery.
Joseph SpiessWhere did she exhibit?
At the Salon d'Automne in 1913 — a young institution, open to the moderns — then regularly at the Salon des Artistes Français from 1920, of which she was a life member, and at the Salon of Women Painters and Sculptors.
Susan DurantWhat was the Salon of Women Painters?
A salon set up in 1881 because women were pushed to the margins of the ordinary salons. It gave them a room of their own — an ambiguous remedy, which brought visibility while confirming the separation.
Geneviève ClaisseWhat do the inscriptions say?
They answer one another: “À nos parents vénérés. Ici dorment ceux dont le souvenir orne ma vie”, then, for her mother, “À l'épouse adorée, à la mère vénérée et chérie, vivant en nos cœurs et en nos pensées” — to the adored wife, to the revered and beloved mother, living in our hearts and in our thoughts. Nothing on the stone says she was a sculptor.
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