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In order to copy or paint the high murals accurately and under the best conditions, the artist used a spectacular moving scaffold, which is also depicted in his portrait [4]. The movable wooden scaffold, 25 feet high, resembled a ladder with a platform due to its slender construction. A contemporary drawing of this unusual working instrument has also been preserved [5]; even a wooden scale model of it was made in preparation.¹

To allow this scaffold to remain for such a long period on a heavily trafficked central site inside the Vatican, De Meulemeester obtained the necessary approvals from the pope and received financial assistance from the French government and, when the United Kingdom of the Netherlands had been created after ‘Waterloo’, from the Dutch government as well. However, problems would soon arise.

The artist was not yet halfway through his work when the ladder was removed from the gallery in name of Joachim Murat (1767- 1815), the king of Naples, and confiscated. His life’s work risked to remain incomplete. All attempts to reclaim the ladder were unsuccessful, and in 1814 De Meulemeester desperately addressed a supplication in verse to the queen of Naples, Carolina Bonaparte (1782-1839), sister of Napoleon. The poem was sung to the queen by the French architect François Mazois (1783-1826), architect, archaeologist, and royal assistant. Carolina was struck by the enthusiasm of the Bruges artist, and the wooden scaffolding was returned to the gallery.² It is difficult to shake the impression that the whole stunt was perhaps also intended as a subtle promotional tool for the project.

4
Detail of the ladder in: Joseph-François Ducq, Portrait of Joseph-Charles De Meulemeester Working in the Loggia of the Vatican, 1813,
oil on canvas, 75.5 x 57.4 cm,
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, inv. no. SK-A-5061

The petition reads as follows:

Je possede une Echelle de bois
(I own a wooden ladder)

Je possede une Echelle,
(I own a ladder,)

Et je ne possede guerre je crois,
(And hardly anything else)

Autre chose qu’elle.
(Methinks, but that.)

Ne voila t’il pas qu’en nom du Roi
(And now, in the name of the King,)

Qu’on en vient me chercher querelle
(They come to quarrel with me,)

Pour m’otter mon Echelle de bois,
(To pull me from my wooden ladder,)

Pour m’otter mon Echelle
(To pull me from my ladder.)

Helas! pour mon Echelle de bois,
(Alas! For my wooden ladder,)

Helas! pour mon Echelle
(Alas! For my ladder,)

Implorez cette Reine à la foi
(Implore this faithful Queen,)

5
Anonymous, Joseph-Charles De Meulemeester’s Scaffolding in the Vatican, 1814,
pen on paper, 245 x 205 mm,
Bruges, Groeningemuseum, Steinmetzkabinet, inv. no. 2003.GRO.0004.II

Et si bonne et si belle.
(So good and so beautiful.)

Peignez lui bien mon désarroi,
(Paint for her my distress,)

Car je meurs de ma peine cruelle
(For I’ll die of such cruel sorrow)

Si on m’otte mon échelle de bois,
(If they pull me from my wooden ladder,)

Si on m’otte mon Echelle
(If they pull me from my ladder.)

Perche sur mon Echelle de bois,
(Perched upon my wooden ladder,)

Perche sur mon Echelle,
(Perched upon my ladder,)

Dans ce beau Vatican ou je vois
(In this beautiful Vatican, where I see)

Mainte fresque immortelle.
(Many an immortal fresco.)

J’y vivois plus heureux cent fois
(I’ve lived here a hundred times happier)

Que ne fut le vainqueur d’Arbelle
(Than the victor of Arbelle)

Ah! laissez-moi mon Echelle de bois,
(Ah! Leave me my wooden ladder,)

Ah! laissez-moi mon Echelle
(Ah! Leave me my ladder)