Fireworks In Paris On July 14, 1889 Watercolor And Gouache Drawing

"Decorative piece in Feux de Lances executed in Paris on July 14, 1889". Watercolor and gouache. 29.5 x 61.5 cm at sight, in a modern frame of 50 x 81 cm. The title is given on a cartridge taken from an older frame. July 14 has only been the French national holiday since 1880 and the Raspail law. July 14, 1889 is a very special day. The Republic experienced several difficulties at the beginning of the year (Bolangist crisis and anti-Republican government). The centenary of the French Revolution is celebrated in the middle of the Universal Exhibition, which opened its doors on May 15, around the Eiffel Tower, inaugurated on March 31. A sumptuous banquet and a ball are organized at the Palais de l'Industrie and a large fireworks display is offered by the City of Paris, fired by the Ruggieri company (fireworks of King Louis XV from 1739) which had already fired the first fireworks from the Eiffel Tower on July 14, 1887, before the end of its construction. Other fireworks were set off that evening: at the Bois de Boulogne and de Vincennes, at the Buttes Chaumont, at Parc Montsouris, at the tip of Île Saint-Louis or on Île des Cygnes in Grenelle. It is very likely that this decorative piece of our drawing is a project or a figment of the mind that has not been realized. The top group, gilded, takes up that of the Palais de l'Industrie (built for the Universal Exhibition of 1855): France distributing crowns to Commerce and Industry. The broken arch evokes the large footbridge of the Alma bridge built for the 1889 Exhibition. According to our research, neither the fireworks fired in July 1889 nor the luminous fountains of the Universal Exhibition does not show such a structure. Moreover, the absence of a crowd (a few disparate characters are represented, some dancing, very close to the event), as well as the gigantic flames, suggest that it is rather an evocation or a project than the representation of a performance that has taken place. This drawing is no less of a high quality.