Design for a frame for the portrait of Armand Guéraud 1862

Charles Meryon crafted this etching, “Design for a frame for the portrait of Armand Guéraud,” intending it as a border, yet it speaks volumes beyond mere decoration. Dominating the imagery are books, symbols of knowledge and law, among which an open volume prominently displays ‘Code Lois’. This evokes the enduring human quest for order. Beside it rests a fox, an ambivalent figure, embodying both cleverness and cunning—a motif traceable back to Aesop’s fables, resurfacing in medieval bestiaries and Renaissance emblems. Note the paw print and other symbols at the bottom: they remind us of heraldry, and of the tension between the natural and human worlds. The juxtaposition of these symbols creates a powerful dialectic, engaging viewers on a subconscious level by stirring ancestral memories and cultural patterns. In this cyclical return of symbols, Meryon’s etching captures not a linear progression, but rather the persistence and transmutation of cultural memory across time.