Maria Ines Aliverti_The Miniatures of Jean Louis ... - Acting Archives

AAR Acting Archives Essays Supplement 10 – April 2011
That year was marked by the death of Voltaire, and shortly before by that of
Lekain, who had been Faesch’s great sponsor, while the beginning of 1779 saw the
death of Garrick. Their end brought to a complete close the historical phase of the
theatrical reform during the Enlightenment, of which the young Swiss ex-patriot had
been a curious and talented artistic witness. 11 This phase had reached its highest point
precisely in the 1760s, characterized by a strong harmony of reforming purpose in
Paris and in London, especially with regard to the art of the actor, and had
culminated almost symbolically in Garrick’s grand tour (1763-1765) and in the closer
contacts between the two theatrical worlds created by the English actor’s stay in
Paris. It was during these years, and on this exceptional occasion, that the story of
our vignettes begins.
As we have seen, the first aspect to be clarified regards the dual identity of
Whirsker and/or Faesch. In repertories and in works of history and criticism, in fact,
the name Whirsker has always been recorded as a real name, corresponding to a
figure different from that of Faesch: an artist considered to have preceded Faesch in
the invention of small theatrical portraits, with whom Faesch was subsequently
associated in some way, or whom he somehow replaced.
This conviction arose from the fact that the title-pages of the two Parisian
editions of Les Métamorphoses de Melpomene et de Thalie ou Caracteres dramatiques des
Comédies Françoise et Italienne, undated [though c.1770] and 1782, both bore the words:
dessiné d’après nature par Whirsker, thus making reference to an author whose identity,
real or fictional, was still to be established. It was not identified, however, and the
name Whirsker remained as the real name of the author of these vignettes, confirmed
in the nineteenth-century editions of the set, the Album dramatique (1820) and Les
Souvenirs et les regrets du Vieil Amateur (1829 and 1861) to which we will return, 12 in the
repertories of nineteenth- and twentieth-century bibliophily and bibliography of
costume, 13 in bound collections of miniatures, 14 and finally accepted in what, before
the advent of large electronic bibliographic databases, were the main tools of
bibliographical reference, that is the printed catalogues of the major libraries. 15
11 Lekain died on 8 February 1778, just when Voltaire returned to Paris, where shortly afterwards the
man who was considered at the time to be the greatest playwright also passed away (30 May). Garrick
died on 20 January 1779; he had retired from the stage in 1776.
12 See below and Sections 5 and 6.
13 Jacques Charles Brunet, Manuel du libraire et de l’amateur des livres, 6 vols., Paris, Firmin Didot, 1860-
1865, III (1862), p. 1677, no. 9666: Whirsker, Les Métamorphoses, Londres 1772; and no. 9667:
Whirsker, Caractères dramatiques, Londres 1772. Henri Cohen, Guide de l’amateur de livres à gravures du
XVIIe siècle, ed. revised and enlarged by Seymour de Ricci, Paris, Librairie de la Roquette, 1912, p.
1066: Whirsker, Les Métamorphoses, Paris [c.1770], and Les Métamorphoses, Londres 1772. René Colas,
Bibliographie générale du costume et de la mode, Paris, Librairie René Colas, 1933, pp. 1102-1103, no. 3073:
Whirsker, Les Métamorphoses, Paris [c.1770]; and no. 3074: Les Métamorphoses, Londres 1772 ; Hilaire and
Meyer Hiler, Bibliography of Costume: A Dictionary Catalog of about Eight Thousand Books and Periodicals, ed.
by Helen Grant Cushing, New York, The H. W. Wilson Company, 1939, p. 898: Whirsker, Les
Métamorphoses, Paris [c.1770], and Les Métamorphoses, Londres 1772.
14 See for instance: Petit Album, Acteurs et Actrices, Bibliothèque Musée de la Comédie Française, no.
acq. A. 96-0003; ex libris: Archivio y Biblioteca de Penard Fernandez; nineteenth-century binding in calf,
leaves 10.3x10-10.3 cm. contents: 48 gouaches (of two different sizes). Ms. note on the first leaf:
dessiné par Whirsker 1780.
15 For example the National Union Catalog, pre-1956 Imprints (T792.0944) lists Les Métamorphoses under
‘Whirsker, fl. 18th cent.’, and under ‘Faesch, Jean Louis, 1697 [sic!]-1778’. With the addition of the
note: ‘Generally considered the work of Whirsker and Jean Louis Faesch’.
6