Françoise Pétrovitch was commissioned to decorate the sixth and last of the bells of the Abbaye Royale de Fontevraud installed in the Abbey’s grounds, and whose inauguration will take place on Saturday 12 April 2025 in the evening. It is a tenor or great bell measuring two meters in height and weighing almost 4.5 tons and is the largest of the series À Toute Volée [The Full Peal]. It is known as Robert, after Robert d’Abrissel (1047-1117) the founder of the Fontevraud Abbey. All the bells bear the first name of an eminent person who lived at the Abbey or shaped its history.

“The iconographic representations I put forward echo the life of Robert d’Arbrissel, who although a preacher, espoused austerity and lived as a hermit alone in the forest. He was an innovative, non-conformist, perpetually on the move, never settling in one place, even after the foundation of the Abbey in 1101. I wanted to embody this movement in my composition with the three figures in profile – Robert and two abbesses – who crossed each other’s paths without ever meeting. One of the women is turned upside down, her hair billowing in the wind, in a vision of the inversion of heaven and earth. The feeling of movement is also conveyed thanks to the reality of the space, where nature, notably in the form of trees and birds, is omnipresent. My work is in the spirit of the Middle Ages, a highly stylized representation, where the figures in profile are symbolically arranged in a hierarchy of levels.” Françoise Pétrovitch

Inauguration in the grounds of the Abbaye Royale de Fontevraud on Saturday 12 April 2025.