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Louis Édouard Fournier | The Funeral of Shelley, 1889

by Explore the Masters: , , ,
Percy Bysshe Shelley, the Romantic poet, drowned in 1822.
His yacht was wrecked in a storm in the Gulf of Spezzia, Italy.
His body was cremated and his remains later buried at the Protestant cemetery in Rome.
Fournier's painting shows the funeral pyre surrounded by three of the dead poet's closest friends.

Louis Édouard Fournier | The Funeral of Shelley, 1889 | National Museums Liverpool

From left to right they are the author and adventurer Trelawny and Shelley’s fellow-poets Leigh Hunt and Byron.
In Trelawny's own account of the event, 'Recollections of the Last Days of Shelley and Byron', he described the hot August day on which the funeral took place.
Fournier chose to ignore this aspect of the description.
Instead he depicted the weather as grey and cold to accentuate the sombre and dramatic mood of the piece. | Source: © Liverpool, Walker Art Gallery


Louis Édouard Fournier (1857-1917) was a French painter and illustrator.
Fournier studied with Alexandre Cabanel, Jules Joseph Lefebvre, and Gustave Boulanger.
In 1881 he won the first prize of the prestigious Prix de Rome with a painting with the subject of Achilles' anger appeased by Minerva.


He also participated in the Paris Salon and in 1900 received a medal and the Legion of Honor.
He also received awards in the Salon of 1889 and the Exposition Universelle of 1890.
Fournier participated in many large-scale artistic endeavors, chief of which was the creation of frescoes for the decoration of the Grand Palais in Paris, in association with other artists including Alexandre Falguière.


Fournier also created many mosaic friezes, considered at the time milestones in French art.
One of his most celebrated frescoes, "Aux gloires du Lyonnais et du Beaujolais" is in the Deliberation Room in the Council General of Rhône in Lyon.
He also produced a series of paintings devoted to the beauties of Lyon, along with many wood carvings.


One of his most famous works is The Funeral of Shelley (1889; held by the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool), shown here.
Fournier also illustrated numerous books, including works of Jean de La Fontaine and Honoré de Balzac, most notably The Duchess of Langeais.