Monday, February 15, 2010

Paintings by Charles Jean Robineau in Royal Collection Feature Le Chevalier de Saint-Georges



[TOP: The Chevalier de Saint-George (1745-99) 1787; The Royal Collection © 2010, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II BOTTOM: The fencing-match between the Chevalier de Saint-George and the Chevalier d'Éon c.1787-89; The Royal Collection © 2010, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II]

Gabriel Banat is author of the most authoritative biography of Le Chevalier de Saint-Georges in English, The Chevalier de Saint-Georges: Virtuoso of the Sword and the Bow; Pendragon Press (2006). He recently alerted us to the existence of a portrait, “The Chevalier de Saint-George (1745-1799)” by Charles Jean Robineau, which is in the United Kingdom's Royal Collection, RoyalCollection.org.uk. The same collection includes a painting entitled: “The fencing-match between the Chevalier de Saint-George and the Chevalier d'Éon.”

The AfriClassical.com biography of Le Chevalier de Saint-Georges explains in Paragraph 30 that the fencing match did take place but the opponent faced by Saint-Georges was actually a man who dressed as a woman and who used the disguise to help him serve as a spy for the King of France. Here is an excerpt:

The Prince of Wales arranged a friendly fencing demonstration in London between Saint-Georges, who was 42, and a 59-year-old French woman, La chevalière d'Éon.” The chevalière was actually Charles d'Éon de Beaumont, a diplomat who dressed as a woman for many years to help him spy on foreign countries for the King of France. D'Éon was a multitalented man of letters, law, diplomacy and the military but had fallen out of favor with the royal court. He practiced fencing daily, in fear of his life.”






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