The Romans of the Decadence

Couture unveiled this enormous canvas at the Paris Salon of 1847 and it was the sensation of the year, winning him a gold medal. Officially it illustrates a line from the Roman poet Juvenal, that vice destroyed Rome more surely than any invading army. But visitors in 1847 read it as being about themselves. A republican who disliked the monarchy, Couture was aiming at the ruling class of the July Monarchy, then mired in corruption scandals, and critics openly called his exhausted revellers the French of the decadence. A single year later the revolution of 1848 swept that regime away. In the centre a young man slumps back among the drinkers while, at the edges, two sober figures stand apart and look on, the quiet judgement the painting wants you to notice.