Japonisme Under the Second Empire: The Jing-Lar Society, Artistic Coterie or Republican Brotherhood?
- Art d'Histoire
- May 28
- 4 min read
In 1868, in the wake of the previous year's World's Fair, a restricted circle of critics and artists established a monthly Sunday gathering in Sèvres.
This male brotherhood, christened the Jing-lar Society, appears at first glance to be fully a part of the budding fashion for Japonisme. However, behind the polished aesthetics of prints and Far Eastern decor lies another historical reality, this one political, as the historian Jean-Paul Bouillon demonstrated in 1978.
The Ephemeral Construction of the Orientalist Myth
For many decades, historiography maintained the image of a Jing-lar Society literally absorbed by Asian folklore. Renowned authors such as Ernest Chesneau in 1878, followed by Léonce Bénédite at the beginning of the twentieth century, and Yvette Thirion in 1961, systematically depicted these meetings as exotic banquets. Their writings describe guests handling chopsticks, drinking sake, and dining on Japonist tableware designed by Félix Bracquemond.
The etching executed by Marc-Louis Solon, soberly titled Jing-lar, seemed moreover to validate this interpretative framework.
The work illustrates a geisha overlooking a set of eight cups adorned with monograms, identifying each member of the brotherhood. The influence of ukiyo-e is undeniable in the treatment of the subject.
Ginglard, a Very French Plonk
The etymology of the society's name tells a different story.
The term Jing-lar has no Oriental roots but is a Japonist transcription of the word ginglard. In popular Parisian slang, it refers to a tart little local wine, consumed in abundance by the boaters on the banks of the Seine.
The members of the Jinglar did not drink sake, but this inexpensive wine, emptying—according to their song—imposing feuillettes, or barrels that could contain over one hundred and thirty litres of alcohol.
Marc-Louis Solon's engraving then takes on a dimension that is less formal and more parodic. The solemn ceremony is also a ribald celebration where the blood of a sensual hara-kiri evokes the red wine poured into the cups.
The meetings organised in Sèvres at Bracquemond's home gathered an intimate circle of some nine faithful followers, including Henri Fantin-Latour, Zacharie Astruc, and Philippe Burty, all linked by a spirit of frank camaraderie.
The Asian aesthetic was certainly, in part, involved in the choice of associations, but one cannot set aside the spirit of merry drinkers.
A Clandestine Activism
The year of the Jing-lar's creation corresponds to a period of fragility for the Second Empire, which was forced to concede new laws on freedom of the press and public meetings.
Let us return to the Jing-lar Diploma, designed by Félix Bracquemond. The work bears the intriguing mention À Gauche (To the Left), a refrain that could evoke a drinking game, seated on chairs and hopping at the cry of a parodied cavalry injunction; one finds in an invitation from Solon to a Jing-Lar meeting: Knights, To the Left, Forward, [m]Arch. But the words also invite a political rallying to the left.
The study of other works by Félix Bracquemond reinforces this hypothesis.
His Republican Plate, produced the same year, presents unequivocal symbolism by representing a black imperial eagle—the incarnation of the Bonapartist regime—terrified by the appearance of a burning sun topped with the Phrygian cap of the Republicans. For fear of censorship, the cap was clandestinely hand-painted onto the earthenware.
This militant visual syntax is found in the bookplate created by Bracquemond for Philippe Burty. The imperial power symbolised on the plate by the eagle is replaced by a dark globe haloed with the words "free and faithful," overlooking a radiating Phrygian cap.
Now, this dark globe echoes, in formal terms, the spherical table around which the cups in Marc-Louis Solon's drawing are organised. The artists of the coterie were not raising their glasses in honor of the rising sun of the Japanese Empire, but were likely toasting to the advent of the French Republic and the sunset of Napoleon III's Empire.
An Organic Fusion of Art and Politics
The biographical profiles of the members confirm this political interpretation.
Philippe Burty openly claimed his positions, while Henri Fantin-Latour was noted for frequenting opposition salons; his later Dreyfusism and his visceral hostility toward the Boulangist movement bear witness to this.
The Jing-lar Society ultimately asserts itself as an intimate gathering of Republican friends, while agreeing on the splendour of Japanese arts. The elegance of the line protected a democratic ideal preserved from Napoleonic censorship.
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