François I. He shows to his sister, the Queen of Navarre, the lines which he has just written on a window pane with his diamond: Women are often inconstant/Mad indeed is he who puts his trust in them (Souvent femme varie/Bien fol qui s’y fie)

Although the empress Josephine did not have official painters (David for example was Napoleon's official painter), she nevertheless played an important role in the art world of the day and was the first French sovereign to amass a sizeable collection of paintings. At Malmaison, she had a “petite galerie” (little gallery) installed by Percier and Fontaine, also called the Salon de musique. An extension to this was built by Berthault in 1807 in the form of a vaulted hall, the light being taken from above following the style for museums of the period. The Little Gallery contained modern works; the extension or large gallery was for ancient works. There was even a “Keeper of paintings for HH the Empress and Queen”, a certain Guillaume Jean Constantin, appointed on 1 December 1807, who was the curator of this collection which Josephine was happy to show to visitors.
 
The first catalogue of her collection, made in 1805, mentions about forty paintings; in 1811, an inventory lists nearly 450. An intelligent collector in her own right, Josephine was advised in her acquisitions by Vivant Denon and other artists. She bought at the Salons, at public sales and, contrary to the tenacious legend, only benefited once from the Napoleonic seizures of European art, namely 48 works taken from the gallery of Elector of Hesse-Kassel in 1806.
 
As for her in painting, the empress did not like the grand manner of contemporary artists, in other words the omnipresent Neoclassicism packed with references to antiquity or celebrating the glory of her famous husband. She had a particular interest for antique painting. But that being said, she did not ignore contemporary painting in other genres: landscapes, flowers, genre scenes and most of all the new trend, troubadour painting, which she helped make fashionable. The painter here, Fleury Richard, a pupil of David's from Lyons, was (along with Pierre Révoil, also Lyonnais) one of the main practitioners of this style. After Richard's triumph with his Valentine de Milan pleurant son époux (Valentina of Milan weeping for her husband) at the Salon of 1802, he presented four paintings at the Salon of 1804, one of which was François I and the Queen of Navarre which Josephine immediately bought.

The perfect example of troubadour painting, a genre so popular amongst upper class women of the First Empire, this painting (as was almost always the case with this genre) shows an anecdote from the history of France. Most often, the episodes were derived from the private lives of sovereigns or important figures from the Middle Ages or the Renaissance, frequently with moralising overtones. Troubadour painting, though considered a minor genre, was in the end to play a significant role in the general contemporary rediscovery of French national history and to open route for flamboyant Romanticism and Academicism.
 
Karine Huguenaud (tr. P.H.)

January 2004