The Monastère royal de Brou in Bourg-en-Bresse has acquired a small troubadour-style painting by Lyon artist Irma Martin, titled "Ondine donne à son mari le baiser qui doit le faire mourir" (1842). The work depicts the climactic scene from the German Romantic tale of Ondine, a water nymph who must kill her unfaithful husband with a kiss. The painting was previously shown at Galerie La Nouvelle Athènes and was donated to the museum by the family of Georges Vigne in his honor.
This acquisition matters because it brings a rare example of 19th-century troubadour painting—a genre that blends medieval and romantic themes—into a French public collection. Irma Martin, a female artist active in Lyon, is little known today, and the donation helps expand the museum's holdings of narrative history painting while honoring the legacy of art historian Georges Vigne. The work also highlights the enduring popularity of the Ondine myth in 19th-century French art and literature.