Paintings

Despite having made his triumphal entry into Berlin and having annihiliated the Prussian army at the twin battles of Jena and Auerstedt 14 October, 1806, Napoleon seems nevertheless to have been obsessed by the memory of Frederick the Great's victories. Ponce-Camus here echoes this uncertainty and shows Napoleon meditating before the tomb of Frederick II […]

On 3 August, 1811, the wealthy Scot, Alexander, Marquis of Douglas – who was to become the tenth Duke of Hamilton in 1819 – wrote to David commissioning from him a portrait of Napoleon. “… You have graciously chosen my brush through which to transfer onto canvas the features of the Great Man and to […]

Fro, the ancients on, history painting was considered art’s noblest genre. And this opinion held good through the Renaissance right up to the end of the Second Empire. It had become the type of art that we would nowadays call ‘documentary’, though the scenes were often carefully staged. The public demanded modern subjects, often from current affairs, almost newspaper snapshots. […]

Often described as showing Napoleon at Fontainebleau after his first abdication, this icon of the imperial legend in fact shows the emperor several days before he performed that political act, indeed at the very moment where he realised that the wheel of fortune had turned. Some of the preparatory material for the painting exists, although […]

A decree passed on 3 March, 1806, ordered the commissioning of 18 paintings in commemoration of the great moments of Napoleonic rule. They were all destined for the Galerie de Diane in the Tuileries palace, and they were all (without exception) to be finished by the Salon of 1808. The victorious campaign of 1805, and […]

On Saturday 5 May 1821 at 5-49pm, in Longwood House on the island of St Helena, ‘the mightiest breath of life which ever animated human clay’ (Chateaubriand) came no more. And it was this, ultimate moment that Steuben wished to immortalise in a painting which has since become what could almost be described as the […]

The novel Atala or the love of two savages in the wilderness by Chateaubriand gave Girodet the subject for one of his most popular paintings. Set in primitive America of the 17th century, Atala is the tragic story of a young Christian metisse who falls madly in love with Chactas, an 'Indian' whom she has […]

Whilst photography was initially a luxury good, reserved for only the wealthiest clientele, during the Second Empire it became accessible to a much wider public, leading to the development of the “visiting card” portrait, patented by Disdéri in 1854. Indeed, the fact that in 1860 more than 200 photographers had boutiques in Paris shows that […]

Just as French artists were commissioned to immortalise the figure of the emperor after the coronation, so too Italian painters leapt into action after the proclamation in Paris of Napoleon as King of Italy on 17 March, 1805 and the coronation in Milan on 26 May. And for the official portrait, Napoleon turned to the […]

Official portraitist for the royal courts of Europe, Franz-Xavier Winterhalter was the favourite painter of the Empress Eugenie. Indeed, Eugenie most probably used her own personal fortune to pay for this renowned collective portrait representing the sovereign in 1855 surrounded by her ladies in waiting. Hung in Fontainebleau Palace during the Second Empire, the work […]