CHASSIRON Charles de (EN)

Biographical Article

The Chassiron family, originally from Saint-Denis d'Oléron, included navigators, travellers, diplomats, politicians, and so on. (Lefrancois T., 1999). Born in Nantes on December 5, 1818, Charles Gustave Martin de Chassiron spent his childhood in Nuaillé-d'Aunis, in the family château of Beauregard. His father, Gustave de Chassiron (1791-1868) performed legislative and municipal functions, and joined the imperial regime after December 2, 1851. Charles-Gustave followed the same political path. He became master of requests at the Council of State, then attaché of the embassy in Tunisia in 1848. Following this stay, he published, in 1849, a work entitled Aperçu pittoresque de la régence de Tunis. In 1850, he married Princess Caroline Murat (1832-1902), granddaughter of the King of Naples (Lefrançois T., 1999). The couple lived for a while in Beauregard then moved to Paris, rue de Douai. Leaving France in December 1857 and returning at the end of 1860, Baron de Chassiron took part in a diplomatic mission to the Far East in order to renew commercial relations with China and Japan. This mission was the first French embassy to visit Japan for two centuries; it led to the signing of a peace and friendship treaty between the two countries. Upon his return in 1861 Chassiron published his Notes sur le Japon, la Chine et l’Inde, 1848-1859-1860, in which he recounts his discovery of and fascination for these distant lands. He was promoted to Officier de la Légion d’honneur in 1863. In 1868, he succeeded his father as mayor of Nuaillé-d'Aunis. He then divided his time between his life in Paris and his roots in Charentes. After the debacle of 1870, his wife decided to accompany Empress Eugénie (1826-1920) to England with her son. The couple separated. Charles Gustave de Chassiron died in Tarbes on June 20, 1871, probably during a cure.

The Voyage in Asia

The Notes make it possible to reconstruct the stages of this journey. Baron de Chassiron was sent to China and Japan from 1858 to 1860. He accompanied the diplomatic mission led by Baron Jean-Baptiste-Louis Gros (1793-1870), Senator of the Empire, Ambassador and High Commissioner of France in China. The first stop was Hong Kong and then Tianjin where a treaty was signed on June 27, 1858. During this stay, the mission ventured to the Great Wall, before heading to Japan in September. After a stop in Shimoda, the French embassy arrived in Edo (Yeddo, present-day Tokyo). It took four days of negotiations before the French mission was authorised to disembark and settle inside the city, in a commercial district. The stay, which lasted twenty days, resulted in the signing of a treaty of peace, friendship and commerce on October 9, 1858 (Chassiron Ch. de, 1861). The mission then made a stop in Nagasaki before returning to China, passing through Korea. The situation was then tense with China: multiple clashes ruined the diplomatic efforts and only ended with the burning of the Summer Palace and the signing of the Treaty of Beijing in 1860 (Gernet J., 2007, p. 345-350). Before returning to France, the mission passed through Singapore, Malacca and Java. It was during this trip that Chassiron acquired some of the objects that would make up his collection.

The Collection

In 1871, the city of La Rochelle was bequeathed the collection of Baron de Chassiron, which consisted of a few Western paintings and furniture and, above all, a large and varied set of Far Eastern objects (La Rochelle, Musée d'Orbigny-Bernon, s.c.). These were first presented in the museum of archeology and curiosities installed on the ground floor of the Hôtel Crussol d'Uzès rue Gargoulleau, before being transferred to the Musée d'Orbigny-Bernon in 1920. Some of the objects, of ethnographic type, are deposited at the Muséum d’Histoire naturelle of La Rochelle at the same time. This collection constitutes the base of the collections of Asian arts in La Rochelle, along with the bequests of Achille Sanier (1871) and Jean-Christophe Gon (1883) and supplemented by deposits from the Musée de la Marine in 1923 and the Musée Guimet in 1929. The Chassiron collection is remarkable for the quality of its objects, but also for its historical aspect, since we know, thanks to his Notes, that Chassiron himself traveled to Asia where some of them were bought. While the pages devoted to his Chinese journey focus on diplomatic and political events, the chapters related to his stay in Japan are a source of precious information on how he was able to obtain certain objects.

A Preeminent Japanese Collection

Lacquers, ivories, books, porcelains, etc. could have been purchased during his visits to Shimoda, Edo (Yeddo) or Nagasaki, in bazaars or pawnshops. All purchases were then checked by the guards who escorted the mission at every step: "The Yakounins [...] still remain close to our people, watching our every move, taking notes, checking our smallest purchase from the merchants: the latter, it seems, can make no delivery to us whatsoever without the authorisation of our supervisors" (Chassiron Ch. de, 1861, p. 98). He did, however, manage to buy books and maps although their sale was normally prohibited to foreigners: "I have pulled out, in every sense of the word, a bundle of coloured prints, which are most interesting as specimens of the typographical art and geographical notions of Japan" (Chassiron Ch. de, 1861, p. 114). The map of Yeddo is also reproduced in facsimile in the Baron's work, along with other pages from the books he was able to bring back. These facsimiles are of rare quality at a time when reproductions were often distorted by the Western eye of engravers. The Chassiron collection thus makes it possible to understand the type of objects and illustrated books which were then available in Parisian artistic circles just after the reopening of Japan to Western trade. Chassiron brought back a set of illustrated novels (MAH. 1871.6.189 to 181), collections of models (MAH.1871.6.164, 172 and 180), the best known of which are undoubtedly the volumes of the Manga (MAH.1871.6 .163 & 168) and Hokusai's One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji (MAH.1871.6.176 & 177), a set that highlights the quality and diversity of production in Japan at the time. Chassiron was also perfectly aware of the pertinence of these works: “I was able to make myself a fairly complete collection of manuals of the science, arts, and trades of Japan; and even collections of caricatures” (Chassiron Ch. de, 1861, p. 115).

Like his traveling companions, Chassiron was impressed by the refinement of Japanese objects and showed very good taste in acquiring high quality objects: “[…] I went to the Simoda bazaar. I was dazzled, and I had a veritable shopping fever, in front of all the pretty, new, artistic things that had been displayed for us; so I have already ruined myself, and, as a hardened prodigal, I count on ruining myself again at Yeddo.” (Chassiron Ch. de, 1861, p. 51). He was particularly interested in the netsuke, those "little worked ivories, old, with a charming finish" (Chassiron Ch. de, 1861, p. 98) which, according to him, "are, with the metals applied to the uses of life, the most curious and interesting samples of the industry of Japan” (Chassion Ch. de, 1861, p. 107). Several that he owned, very well-made, were signed Minkoku, a craftsman from the Edo school.

His collection of lacquerware is also indicative of the fascination of the collector discovering these at once utilitarian and delicate objects, whose technique has not been equaled in the West: "[...] as applications or as incrustations of pure metaus [sic], such as gold, silver, platinum or their alloys, the Japanese make use of lacquer and wood, the key to which has yet to be found in Europe” (Chassiron Ch. de, 1861, p. 117). In the field of ceramics, Chassiron instead acquired pieces intended for export, such as a set of twenty-four porcelain cups and saucers from Mikawachi (Hirado) whose finesse attracted him (MAH.1871.6.14.1 to 24). The preamble to the posthumous inventory tells us that the collection was presented in the windows and in the salons of the Parisian residence of Chassiron, rue de Douai: it undoubtedly contributed to the diffusion of Japanese art which, at this time, aroused tremendous interest. This resulted in the influx of Japanese objects on the Western market and in the success of Japanese presentations at the Universal Exhibitions (Paris, 1867), but above all in the vogue for Japonisme which swept over the West at the end of 19th century and has inspired many artists (Lacambre G., 2017).

A Bargain Hunter in China

Although Chassiron's Chinese collection is much less documented than the Japanese collection, it nonetheless reflects the Baron's curiosity for arts and crafts from this country. Consisting of ceramics, objects of scholars (brushes, inkstones, seals, etc.) and from everyday life, accessories as well as paintings on elderberry pith paper or on silk, its diversity suggests that Chassiron has been able to stroll through the factories and shopping districts of Hong Kong and Shanghai in the same way as in the bazaars of Shimoda.

The paintings are particularly interesting: Chassiron thus brought back two albums of gouaches on elderberry pith paper, a common characteristic of objects brought back by Western travellers at that time (De couleurs et d'encre, 2015; Crossman C., 1991), and which depict scenes from the life of a mandarin and the theatre (MAH.1871.6.157 and 158). The finesse of the lines and the luminosity of the colours must have seduced Chassiron who also brought back a roll on silk (MAH.1871.6.183), entitled Description illustrée des indigènes du pays de Dian, that evokes the customs of the populations of southern China (Yunnan) through an alternation of calligraphic texts and meticulously painted vignettes. It is difficult to know if Chassiron bought this roll or if it was offered to him during an official meeting, but the fact remains that this painting corresponds to the taste for exoticism that the Baron manifested in his Notes (De couleurs et d'encre, 2015).