Jean-Pierre Louis Laurent HOUEL (Rouen 1735-Paris 1813) - Lot 21

Jean-Pierre Louis Laurent HOUEL (Rouen 1735-Paris 1813) The storming of the Bastille Pen and black ink, watercolor. Annotated below Prise de la bastille a l'instant de la sortie du gouverneur Mar de Launay July 14, 5 o'clock in the evening. 36.5 x 51 cm This anecdotal drawing depicts the end of the storming of the Bastille on July 14, 1789, as seen from the entrance to the double drawbridge between the Bazinière and Comté towers. Let down by his troops, the Marquis de Launay, governor of the Bastille, surrendered in exchange for a promise that his life, and those of the soldiers who remained loyal to him, would be spared. Taken prisoner, he was led to the Hôtel de Ville. The pike-armed group in the middle of the composition foreshadows his doomed fate. Two of the seven prisoners still locked up in the Bastille escape to the left. There are two other versions with variations, notably on the figure of the governor of the Bastille, one in the Musée Carnavalet, the second in the BNF.