Lionel Royer

He volunteered before his 18th birthday for the Franco-Prussian War and took part in the Battle of Loigny-Poupry on 2 December 1870 under the command of General Athanase Charette de la Contrie.

In illustrated supplements of newspapers of the era, he was a commentator on current affairs, in particular supplying drawings of Alfred Dreyfus in his prison or Auguste Comte and his three muses.

In 1897, he made a gift to the Société historique et archéologique du Maine (of which he was a member, as was fellow artist Albert Maignan) of ten watercolors depicting the Life of Joan of Arc, which had been unsuccessful entries in a contest of 1893 for new designs for windows in Orléans Cathedral.

(Chantal Bouchon - Revue Historique et Archéologique du Maine)Royer reprised this Johannic iconography (assisted by Charles Lorin of Chartres, master glazier) at the basilica of Domrémy.

"Despite indications of the influence of the figures by Raphaelesque and Ingresesque reminiscences, these windows have a connotation of appeals to vengeance, in the vicinity of Domrémy, so charged with symbolic significance."

Lionel-Noël Royer (1852-1926)
Vercingetorix Throws Down his Arms at the Feet of Julius Caesar (1899), Crozatier Museum at Le Puy-en-Velay
Portrait of Comte d'Adhémar de Cransac . Oil on canvas, c. 1890, in the Dayton Art Institute
La Source (Published in Salon illustré 1888)