Portrait of Collot d'Herbois

Striking original portrait of the French actor, dramatist, essayist, and revolutionary. Oil on paper, ca. 1780. 12.5 x 16 inches (31.7 x 40.7 cm), framed in an antique wooden frame to an overall size of 17.5 x 19 inches. Unsigned, the subject identified in pencil on the reverse.  

Born in Paris in 1749, Jean-Marie Collot d'Herbois began a career as an actor in his teens. In 1784 he became director of the theatre in Geneva, and then at the prestigious playhouse at Lyon in 1787. At the outbreak of the Revolution in 1789 he returned to Paris, where his lead actor's voice, his writing skills, and his ability to organize and direct large-scale fêtes (civic feasts) were to make him famous. Becoming more and more radical in his views over the years, he was the first to demand the abolition of the French monarchy at the National Convention in September 1792. As a member of the Committee of Public Safety during the Reign of Terror, he saved Madame Tussaud from the Guillotine, but also administered the execution of more than 2,000 people in the city of Lyon. His writings include at least fifteen plays, the revolutionary best-seller L'Almanach de père Gérard, and parts of the first French Constitution, which was written in 1793 but never applied. (17650)

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