The "Fête impériale"

Ball at the Tuileries
Compiègne, Musée du Second Empire

The Expositions Universelles of 1855 and of 1867 greatly contributed to the spread of the image of the splendour and pomp of imperial France. In 1867, all of the sovereigns of continental Europe came together in Paris, Alexander II, Franz-Josef, Ludwig II of Bavaria, Kaiser Wilhelm I of Prussia… Although Carpeaux is best known as a sculptor (he had carved busts of many of these rulers), he was also a painter who took astonishing liberties, and he made a series of paintings representing the fêtes and balls given on that occasion. His portraits reveal Carpeaux’s evident delight in the subject, as expressed through the rapid brush strokes and the heavy use of thick layers of paint.
Here the empress is making her entrance on the arm of the tsar. The moment thus seized is vibrant with colour and totally expressive of the atmosphere of the ‘Fête impériale’. And the perceived incompleteness of the painting and the refusal to identify either the subjects or the place simply serve to heighten the feeling of a fleeting, dreamlike vision.