Jacques-Louis David suggested making a marble sculpture to honour the first martyr of the Revolution but this project was never achieved and he painted  Les Derniers moments de Michel Lepeletier de Saint Fargeau  within two months.

The disappearance of the painting

From these events a legend was born : Some say the painting still existed at Suzanne's death in 1829 and was burnt when the château de Saint Fargeau (near Auxerre, 180 km south of Paris) was partially destroyed by a fire in 1850. Others, such as Jeannine Baticle, think that it was intentionally burnt by the royalist daughter of Lepeletier in front of witnesses.

Repainting

Since he visited the exhibition about David organized by the Jaquemart Museum in Paris, Luc Scaccianoce has had one goal : to repaint this piece according to the remaining documents (the engraving, the drawing and numerous contemporary and later accounts).

The approach is original as it has no established definition. It can't be seen as a copy because of the lack of reference to an existing painting. It's more like a reconstruction just as some Greek temples have been reconstructed after sufficient remains were recovered to allow to extrapolate their structure.

Luc Scaccianoce has already had the opportunity to comment briefly about the painting in a book about the History of Art after 1789 (cf. bibliography of Luc Scaccianoce / l'Image profanée).
He has gathered some friends interested in the project and researchers in different fields with the aim of publishing a book (Le soir du déicide) about the meaning of the painting in its revolutionary context and about the persona of Michel Lepeletier.

The study should come in different forms :
a collection of written analysis on the historical role of M. Lepeletier and his views on law and education ; the significance of the painting and the approach of repainting ; accounts on the personality of his daughter Suzanne and the imprisonment of Louis XVI .
 an exhibition of paintings linked to the French Revolution .
 the recording of pieces of music dedicated to M. Lepeletier .

Luc Scaccianoce thus undertook his "Repeinture" in January 2006, initially a third of the original to make the distinction between the engraving and the drawing. (see "Tardieu versus David" ) The repainting of the canvas (165 x 149,4 cm) was started in July 2006 using Marat assassiné (from the Royal Museum of Brussels) as a reference to determine the scale (as we do not have the original measurements.)

Luc Scaccianoce relied as much on the study of  Marat assassiné as on the engraving and the drawing of Les Derniers moments de M. Lepeletier to produce the painting. He practised with various copies of paintings by David to become more familiar with the style of the Master ( see: Reproductions annexes)

Today, a hundred and fifty years after it disappeared, Luc Scaccianoce seems to have made a success of the challenge. He didn't undertake this task as a beginner, having graduated in drawing from the Higher National School of Art of Paris in 1973 and if the result has some credibility, it is surely thanks to his teacher Roger Plin.

Luc Scaccianoce is also a sculptor, an historian of art, a doctor in philosophy, a psychoanalyst and a member of the group EIDOS (Study of Image in a Semiotic Orientation)

Contact :

in French :              La coordonnatrice du projet

in English :              The webmistress