mheu, Historical Museum of the Urban Environment

The artist

Not much can be said about Hippolyte Lecomte (1781-1857). He was a respectable painter of historical scenes, particularly those from the First Empire and the Napoleonic Wars. He married Camille Vernet, the sister of the painter Horace Vernet, with whom he had a son, Charles Emile Lecomte-Vernet, who also became a painter (Orientalist). Along with Auguste Garneray, he designed costumes for the Opera ballets.

Battle in Rue de Rohan shows a scene from 1830, on the final day of the July Revolution, which saw the monarchy overthrown. The painting is not, however, Lecomte's most outstanding work, with its somewhat static crowd scene and horizontal composition. Eugène Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People is a more impressive piece on the same theme.