Scene of the Inquisition in Spain

In 1870 a wealthy patron, the comtesse de Caen, left her fortune to the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris to support young artists who had won the Prix de Rome. In return each one handed over a work of his own choosing, and from 1879 those works filled a small museum in her name at the Institut de France. Ferrier deposited this scene that first year, when it was also shown at the Salon. A young woman, her wrists roped, is forced back against a stack of firewood. A hooded friar points the way, and at the bottom an old man holds a burning torch. Of the 133 works the bequest gathered, many were later lost, and 28 burned in a fire at Chantilly in 1941. This one survived, and in 2014 the Académie deposited it at the Musée d'Orsay.