Famous work · not an exact-location map point
The barrier of Clichy
The National Guard defending the Clichy tollgate on the northern edge of Paris, 30 March 1814 — the gate is gone; the spot is the Place de Clichy.
No single real-world viewpoint
A military-event history painting (Vernet, 'Defense de Paris, le 30 mars 1814'); the depicted customs tollgate was demolished in the 1860s. Consistent with the battle/siege scenes already off the core map. Supersedes the M4 repoint to the Place de Clichy site.
The barrier of Clichy — at a glance
- Artist
- Horace Vernet (1789–1863)
- Year
- 1820
- Movement
- French Romanticism / history painting
- Place
- The barrière de Clichy, northern edge of Paris
- Viewpoint
- A customs tollgate demolished in the 1860s — the site is now the Place de Clichy, with a Moncey monument
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- c. 98 × 131 cm
- Now at
- Musée du Louvre, Paris
Overview
The Barrier of Clichy is a patriotic history painting by Horace Vernet, made in 1820. It shows a moment on 30 March 1814, when Napoleon's empire was collapsing and the armies of the Sixth Coalition were entering Paris: at the customs barrier of Clichy, on the city's northern edge, Marshal Moncey directs a scratch force of National Guardsmen, wounded soldiers, students and townspeople holding the gate against the enemy. It is oil on canvas, about 98 by 131 cm, and it hangs in the Musée du Louvre, Paris.
Where was The barrier of Clichy painted?
Scholarship The barrière de Clichy was one of the tollgates in the Wall of the Farmers-General, the customs wall that ringed Paris from the 1780s; it stood on the road north towards the village of Clichy. The wall and its gates were demolished in the 1860s; the site of the Clichy barrier is now the Place de Clichy, a busy square in the north of Paris with a statue of Moncey commemorating the 1814 defence. So the exact gate no longer exists, but its location is precisely fixed and marked.
What is in the painting?
By the low buildings of the tollgate, an armed, ragged crowd forms up: Moncey on horseback pointing forward, National Guardsmen in shakos loading muskets, a wounded regular soldier being helped, a boy with a musket, women bringing cartridges, a cart. Smoke drifts from fighting further off; the northern faubourg and a grey sky behind. The mood is desperate but defiant.
Look closely
Moncey on horseback
The marshal points the defenders forward from the centre of the group.
The mixed defenders
National Guardsmen, a wounded regular, a boy with a musket and women carrying cartridges.
The tollgate buildings
The low customs pavilions of the barrière de Clichy stand at the left.
The off-stage enemy
The attackers are only smoke drifting from the fighting beyond.
Analysis
Composition and technique
A crowded, animated defensive group at the tollgate buildings, with the fighting suggested by smoke beyond.
Scholarship Vernet fills the foreground with individualised, vigorous figures of all kinds — soldiers, citizens, women, a child — around the mounted marshal, and keeps the actual enemy off-stage as smoke, so the picture is about the improvised heroism of the defenders. The handling is quick and the detail journalistic.
History & provenance
The painting is in the Musée du Louvre, Paris.
Sources
- Musée du Louvre, Paris — collection entry for Horace Vernet, ‘La Barrière de Clichy. Défense de Paris, le 30 mars 1814’ (1820)
- Ville de Paris — the Wall of the Farmers-General and the barrière de Clichy
