Objects

Of all the existing images of the Empress Eugenie, the photographs of her in prayer are the most iconic. This photographic portrait taken by Gustave le Gray  in the summer of 1856 for the painter Thomas Couture, was widely disseminated after it was taken. This wasn’t the first time the Empress was captured in prayer; the […]

6 November 1857, Madame, I needed all the prodigious presumption of a poet to dare to trouble your Majesty and bring to her attention a case as petty as my own. I have had the misfortune to be condemned for a collection of poems entitled “The Flowers of evil”, whose horribly frank title was not […]

On 5 June 1806, Napoleon appointed his brother, Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, King of Holland. This was a tactical decision on Napoleon’s part to limit Holland’s independence by installing a puppet ruler, but it did not go according to plan. Louis took his duties as King extremely seriously: he adopted the Dutch form of his name, […]

Although this is an object of religious devotion, it is also a true work of art. With its finely executed ivory figures, its ebony and mahogany decoration, and its elaborate composition, the Bonaparte family’s nativity scene is one of the Musée Nationale de la Maison Bonaparte’s most fascinating pieces. The exceptional quality of the scene’s […]

The ‘Diamonds of the Crown of France’, an inalienable treasure embodying the power of the monarchy, survived throughout French history from the creation of the institution in 1530 by François I up to the Second Empire. And Napoleon III was to make his own use of this fabulous treasure, just as all French monarchs had […]

As early as the end of the 18th century, Jean-Baptiste Isabey was celebrated as one of the greatest French miniaturists ever. At that time, the miniature genre was at its apogee in terms of popularity, a popularity supported by the Revolutionary wars and later the campaigns of Napoleon, since each soldier wanted to take with […]