Friday, 16 May 2014
Foy Gone to Pot?
Here's one I hadn't seen before. It's me, Max Foy!
This is a ceramic bust of me, manufactured in 1820 - which is after I'd retired from the army and become a prominent liberal politician, orator and effective leader of the opposition in the French Chamber of Deputies, but it is also before I died in 1825, so I guess this is a representation of me as I then was.
The bust is in the Musee Lorrain, in the Palais Ducal in Nancy. It is not there because I myself came from Nancy (I was born in the department of Somme), but because the piece was manufactured at Niderviller, in Lorraine. This is rather more jovial than I am customarily portrayed, so I have mixed feelings about it - perhaps it's sardonic? Anyway, I came across the picture by accident, while looking for something else entirely.
But what we need to know is have you still got the mop of curls and sideburns??
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely, dear boy - they are not exactly mine, but I keep them in a drawer.
DeleteUncanny, I find pictures of stuff on the internet by accident too...no, honestly I do!!
ReplyDeleteSpooky, or what?
DeleteThat's some snazzy cummerbund you're wearing there, M. Foy.
ReplyDeleteMichael, I am reassured - some rude chap emailed to say that the full photograph would show fishnet stockings. Thank you for this.
DeleteI must also point out the very snazzy "m-notch" lapels, which were the very height of fashion in 1820. Anyone who ever suggested that ex-military Jocobin politicians were fuddy-duddies was well wide of the mark, I should say.
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