Feb 25, 2024
The Sons of Clovis II, also called "Les Énervés de Jumièges"
by Évariste Vital Luminais
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The Sons of Clovis II, also called "Les Énervés de Jumièges"
by Évariste Vital Luminais
Albert Pierre René, after Maignan - Clovis II, The Boy Kind of the Franks (litho).
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Clovis II, known as "the Lazy One", born in 635 and died on 31 October 657, was King of the Franks, Neustria and Burgundy from 639 until his death.
Albert Maignan - Hommage à Clovis II
The Sons of Clovis II, also called "Les Énervés de Jumièges"
by Évariste Vital Luminais
Albert Maignan - Hommage à Clovis II
Large (Wikimedia)
Évariste Luminais painted his startling work The Sons of Clovis II in 1880.
Even at first glance, it's a little horrifying: like the Lady of Shalott, the two subjects float down a river, richly dressed but oddly passive. Both wear resigned (verging on sickly) expressions.
Worse, though, are the events in the legend that directly precede the moment captured in The Sons of Clovis II.
Their father having left on pilgrimage, the brothers make trouble as only a king's sons could: they (unsuccessfully) foment rebellion. Their mother, in grand Merovingian fashion, decides to punish them. By cutting their hamstrings and leaving them adrift on a raft.
Now, they do actually survive—eventually they wash up by a monastery, where they take orders and even (ultimately) reconcile with their parents—but, as the Art Gallery of New South Wales points out, "[t]hough Luminais foreshadows the salvation of the malefactors in the distant shape of a Benedictine monastery, he is clearly more concerned with their present gruesome predicament."
From front clockwise the gisants of:
Isabelle d"Aragon (1247-1271) first wife of Philippe III le Hardi, Clovis II (635-657) king de Neustrie and Bourgogne 639-657, Charles Martel (685-741) Mayor of the palace of Austria and Bourgogne 721-741 grandfather to Charlemagne, Philippe IV le Bel (1268-1314) king of France and Navarre 1285-1314, Philippe III le Hardi (1245-1285) king of France 1270-1285.
Basilica Saint Denis, royal necropolis. Saint Denis, France. Photo by Amber Maitrejean