Rocznik Muzeum Narodowego w Warszawie (2(38).2013)

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Art of the Nineteenth Century

(fig. 2), with added oversized shawls, throws and hats. It is thus easy to identify flower girls,
concierges or maids by their clothing, as their modest dresses, which do not trail, contrast
with the outfits of the grandes dames or of the lorettes, who wear them as hand-me-downs.20
The demi-monde occupies quite an important place in the iconography, or rather panorama
of customs, conceived by Tronsens. Even Wokulski attended the Théâtre des Variétés,21 and
everywhere one turned, Paris had countless little theatres, cabarets and other hotbeds of the
doings of the “muse of frivolity” - which is what the priceless Kurier Warszawski newspaper
called it in those days. The heroines of romance novels and the models for the eminent and
less eminent artists of the era came from their ranks. Thus, the then-famous singer Theresa,22
a subject of countless caricatures in the Parisian periodicals of the day (fig. 3), sang at the
Alcazar, which Tronsens immortalized in a drawing. A picture of the famous soprano Adelina
Patti in the title role of Bellini’s “La sonnambula” in the autumn of 1861 (fig. 4) also shows the
boxes and the audience at the Théâtre aux Italiens, the lyric opera. The theatre played an im-
portant role in this era; debates about its artistic condition are the subject of other sketches
by Tronsens, in which Don Quixote fights for his ideals with la Dame aux camélias, and the
classical tradition, impersonated by Boileau, with the romantic Don Quixote (fig. 5). Tronsens
would not have been a real chronicler of this period had his subjects not included an exhibition
of paintings admired by some and disliked by others. This brings to mind the scandals well
known in the history of art involving the works of Courbet and other innovators of the second
half of the nineteenth century and the Salon des Refusés and the Impressionist exhibitions in
Nadar’s studio (fig. 6). In Tronsens’s whole oeuvre, which also includes political caricatures, his
favourite subject were the streets of Paris: their flow and their people (which also fascinated
Wokulski), the theatres, the demi-monde, the ambiguous position of the woman in a man’s
world - in a word, Parisian life hot off"the press.
Bloch, too, was captivated by Paris. This is obvious in his collection, with its many mas-
terpieces by the old Italian and French masters, whose heart is filled with the chroniclers of
Parisian life, with Tronsens prime in their midst.

20 Lorettes were women of light carriage, whose name came from the church of Nôtre-Dame-de-Lorette,
which was located in their neighbourhood, Bréda; see Pelletan, op. cit., pp. 79,105,302.
21 The Théâtre des Variétés in Montmartre was founded in 1807 by Mademoiselle Montansier, an actress
of Comédie Française, and it operates to this day; in the 1860s it put on the premieres of several opéras-bouffes by
Jacques Offenbach.
22 Alcazar café-concert in the Faubourg Poissonnière, which opened in 1858 and operated until 1902, was
also called the Alcazar d’hiver after its summer counterpart was launched in the Champs Elysées. In 1863-90 the
singer Emma Valladon (1837-1913), a.k.a. Theresa, was the star of the Alcazar.