Objects : 132
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ObjectRevolutionary period skeleton clock
Many skeleton clocks were made during the final years of the 18th century. That here, with enamel decoration by Joseph Coteau (1740-1801), is notable for its two dials indicating the time, day, month, moon phase for the new chronometry imposed by the Republican calendar. The main dial shows the hours, minutes and seconds in the […]
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ObjectLetter from Napoleon to Champagny, Minister for Foreign Affairs
This letter (for a transcription and translation, click here) addressed to Champagny and dated “Rambouillet, 7 September, 1807” is not entirely unknown since the minute held at the Archives nationales, Paris, was published by Lecestre. But the text of the document owned by the Fondation Napoléon is not exactly the same as the minute: the […]
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ObjectScale model of the frigate La Muiron
Jean-Baptiste Muiron (1774-1796) is one the hero figures of the Napoleonic legend. Bonaparte's ADC in Italy, he fell beneath a hail of Austrian bullets at Arcole bridge on the 15th of November, 1796, using his body to protect his general. A providential figure in Napoleon's destiny, Muiron received posthumous homage in the form of a […]
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ObjectBust of Napoleon I
As a remarkable portraitist who had immortalised the great men of the 18th century, Jean-Antoine Houdon was commissioned during the Empire period to make a monumental bronze statue of Napoleon, designed to go on top of the Grande Armée column in Boulogne – the reliefs at the base of the column were to be executed […]
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ObjectThe Roi de Rome’s cradle
On 20 March, 1811, the Empress Marie-Louise gave birth to the heir to the imperial throne, the Roi de Rome, or King of Rome. Two weeks earlier, the Prefect of the Département de la Seine, Frochot, and the Conseil Municipal (Paris town council) had offered on behalf of the Ville de Paris (City of Paris) […]
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ObjectThe Jouy Cloth – bed cover: "Pallas and Venus"
The printed cloth manufactory founded by Christophe-Philippe Oberkampf (1738-1815) in Jouy-en-Josas (near to Paris) in 1760, whose most famous products are known as 'toiles de Jouy' (Jouy cloth), was particularly prosperous during the Empire period. Easier to manage than silk, printed cotton was very much in vogue and therefore used as decoration for a whole variety […]
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ObjectNapoleon I’s Athénienne
“In the emperor’s bedroom there was a magnificent silver lavabo resting upon a stand – each of its legs was carved in the shape of a swan’s neck – together with a ewer of the same metal, made by the goldsmith Biennais; my desire to take it was countered by the fear that I was […]
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ObjectA Mamluk’s harness
On 21 July, 1798, the French army, led by the general Bonaparte fought a battle on the Gizeh plain against Murad Bey and his Mamluk troops. Renamed for posterity “the Battle of the Pyramids”, this episode in the Egyptian campaign soon became established as one of the key moments in the Napoleonic legend, particularly with […]
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ObjectThe Cent-Jours standard Eagle of the 6e Régiment des Chasseurs à Cheval
A traditional heraldic symbol, the eagle was adopted in the decree of 10 July, 1804, which stipulated that the seal and arms of the Empire should be: “azure with an antique-style eagle in gold bearing a thunderbolt in its claws, also gold“. Associated since the earliest antiquity with military victory, the eagle, the bird of […]
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ObjectJosephine’s ‘corbeille de mariage’ [wedding basket]
Throughout the 18th century there was a tradition whereby a husband would offer his wife-to-be a wedding basket (also known in French as a “Sultan”). On the occasion of her marriage to the young General Bonaparte, in March, 1796, the Widow Beauharnais found amongst her wedding gifts this basket filled with jewelry and and fripperies. […]