03 — ARTWORK
Sorrow, Tomb of Pierre Gareau
MILHOMME, François-Dominique-Aimé · 1816 →
- MEDIUM
- Marble, height 135 cm
- TYPE
- Religious
PALETTE
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- FILE
- 700 × 1052 px · JPEG
COMMENTARY
UNDERLINED TERMS ARE DEFINED IN THE GLOSSARY.
Sorrow, Tomb of Pierre Gareau c. 1816 Marbleloosely applied to any hard limestone that can be sawn into thin slabs and will take a good polish so that it is suitable for decorative work; more strictly, it refers to metamorphosed limestones whose structure has been recrystallized by heat or pressure. Marbles are widely disseminated and occur in a great variety of colours and patterns, but certain types have been particularly prized by sculptors. The most famous of Greek white marbles in the ancient world was the close-grained Pentelic, which was quarried at Mount Pentelicon in Attica. The Elgin Marbles are carved in Pentelic. Widely used also were the somewhat coarser-grained translucent white marbles from the Aegean islands of Paros and Naxos. Parian marble was used for the celebrated Mausoleum at Halicarnassus. The pure white Carrara marble, quarried at Massa, Carrara, and Pietra Santa in Tuscany from the 3rd century BC, is the most famous of all sculptors' stones. It was used for the Apollo Belvedere, and was much favoured in the Renaissance, particularly by Michelangelo, who often visited the quarries to select material for his work. Neoclassical sculptors also favoured Carrara marble because of its ability to take a smooth, sleek surface, but it can look rather 'dead' compared with some of the finest Greek marbles., height 135 cm Père-Lachaise Cemetery, Paris
The Père-Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, opened in 1804, was soon covered with monuments and these, together with the beauty of the site and the many plants and shrubs surrounding the tombs, made it during the romantic period a popular resort on half-days and holidays.
Under the Ancien Régime, people sought to ensure their salvation by endowing foundations; in the nineteenth century, their successors were anxious above all that their memory should not die, oblivion being in their eyes ultimate death. The decree law of 1804, followed by the creation of the big cemeteries outside the city walls, was an expression of this new materialistic form of respect for the dead and guaranteed the success of the sale of burial plots in perpetuity and monuments designed to preserve - and extol - the memory of the deceased.
In keeping with this trend, images depicting Death were seldom placed in cemeteries. On the other hand, the representation of Grief, am indirect way of paying tribute to the dead, is a favourite theme very much in evidence in funerary sculpture, expressed sometimes in allegorical, sometimes in narrative form. As early as 1816 Milhomme created a fine figure expressing the sorrow of the widow and six children of Pierre Gareau, killed in an accident.
The Milhomme figure begot many more of the same kind, but the scenes of affliction came to an end with the years 1820-25.
CITE THIS RECORD — BIBTEX
@online{wga-rfa17f3ed208191,
author = {Krén, Emil and Marx, Daniel},
title = {Sorrow, Tomb of Pierre Gareau by MILHOMME, François-Dominique-Aimé},
organization = {{Web Gallery of Art}},
date = {2026-09-13},
url = {https://beta.wga.hu/artists/milhomme-franois-dominique-aim-r602cb3454af9fb/sorrow-tomb-of-pierre-gareau-rfa17f3ed208191},
urldate = {2026-09-13},
langid = {english}
}ACCESSED 2026-09-13. REPLACE THE AUTHOR FIELD WITH THE COMMENTARY AUTHOR WHERE ONE IS NAMED.
OTHER WORKS BY FRANÇOIS-DOMINIQUE-AIMÉ MILHOMME
The archive catalogues no further works by this artist.
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