Le Dejeune de Ferney (Engraving)
Thomas Jefferson was a great admirer of Voltaire and, according to family tradition, presented this engraving of the philosopher dining at home as wedding gift to his granddaughter Ellen and her husband Joseph Coolidge.
Artist/Maker: Denis Née (c. 1732-1818) and Louis Masquelier (1741-1811), engravers, after Baron Dominique Vivant Denon (1747-1825)
Created: 1775
Origin/Purchase: France
Materials: engraving
Dimensions: 14.3 × 18.1 (5 5/8 × 7 1/8 in.)
Provenance: Thomas Jefferson; by gift to Joseph Coolidge; by descent to Ellen Coolidge Dwight; by gift to Martha Jefferson Trist Burke; by descent to Ellen Coolidge Burke Eddy; by descent to James Eddy; by purchase to Thomas Jefferson Foundation in 1963
Accession Number: 1963-19-2
Historical Notes: According to family tradition, Jefferson presented this engraving to his grandson-in-law Joseph Coolidge on the occasion of his marriage to Ellen Randolph in 1825. The image shows Voltaire having lunch at his summer home in Ferney, France. Jefferson, a great admirer of Voltaire's writing, returned from France with this print and Jean-Antoine Houdon's bust of the writer. The frame for this work has traditionally been attributed to the Monticello slave cabinetmaker John Hemmings.1
- Text from Stein, Worlds, 177
Footnotes
- James A. Bear, "Curator's Annual Report, 1963" (Charlottesville: Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation, 1964), 12-13.