Objects : 132
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Object / Directory / 1st EmpireMalachite Jewellery Ensemble supposedly belonging to Josephine
This ensemble of two necklaces, a pair of bracelets, a diadem, a brooch, a pendant and six pins, attributed to jewellers Marie-Étienne Nitot and François-Régnault Nitot (father and son), is decorated with cameos in malachite, natural pearls, yellow gold and tortoiseshell. All except three of the cameos have antique-style figures on them, female or male profiles. The two […]
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Object / IIe République – 2nd Empire/2nd Republic-2nd EmpireThe Finger of the statue of the Emperor Constantine: from the Campana collection to the Louvre
In June 2018, the Musée du Louvre issued a press release* informing the general public that they had solved a mystery more than 150 years old. Since 1862, the museum has owned a bronze finger, 38 cm in height, clearly a fragment from the hand of an ancient statue. The only thing we knew about […]
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ObjectBrooch decorated with brilliants belonging to the Grande Maîtresse of the Empress’ Household, the Princesse d’Essling
The jewellery worn by the Ladies in Waiting or Dames of Empress Eugenie’s Household are indicative of the sumptuous nature of the Empire and the brilliant technicity of French jewellery. The broach here also had a practical use: unlike the men in service to the crown, the ladies had no uniform. A specific broach was […]
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ObjectThe Imperial Eagles of the First and Second Empires
In the decree of 10 July 1804, Napoleon I stipulated that the new imperial coat of arms should be “d’azur à l’aigle à l’antique d’or, empiétant un foudre du même” (“azure, with an eagle in the manner of antiquity, coloured gold, clutching in its talons a thunderbolt of the same colour”). After the proclamation of […]
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ObjectNapoleon wrapped in his dream
This posthumous portrait of Napoleon Bonaparte carved in marble must be one of the most curious works to come out of the studio of French sculptor Auguste Rodin. It was commissioned in 1904 by the American collector Kate Seney Simpson,The daughter of a Brooklyn banker and art collector, George I. Seney and wife of New […]
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ObjectLetter from Charles Baudelaire to Empress Eugenie
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 […]
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ObjectThe phonautographe
The phonautograph, the first machine ever to record sound, was invented during the Second Empire, in 1853, by the Frenchman Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville (1817-1879). Using a technique analogous to that of today’s seismometer (which converts earth tremors into a visual signal), the phonoautograph consisted of a membrane, placed at the end of an acoustic […]
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ObjectPrototype for a set of Imperial Playing Cards
Click here for an enlargement The first playing cards appeared in Europe at the beginning of the 14th century. However, even as late as the 18th century, they were by no means unified in their style. In France, the pack comprised the four classic suits – spades, diamonds, hearts and clubs (the French word trèfle […]
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Object“Tact” watch belonging to Jerome Bonaparte, King of Westphalia
Swiss-born Abraham-Louis Bréguet was encouraged to go into watchmaking by his step-father Joseph Tattet, who came from a family of watchmakers and had a showroom in Paris. Bréguet completed his apprenticeship under an horlogist in Versailles. He established his own house in Paris in 1775 on the Quai de l’Horloge and became a master in […]
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ObjectProjet for the Bonaparte Forum in Madrid
Joseph Bonaparte, a new king for Spain On 20 July 1808, Joseph Bonaparte arrived in Madrid, the capital of what Théophile Gautier was to describe as the most “anti-classical” country in Europe. In comparison with Paris – and even with Naples where Joseph had reigned for two years -, Madrid was a small town that […]