Paintings : 166
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PaintingNapoleon I on his Imperial Throne
This painting, one of the best-known representations of Emperor Napoleon I, was Ingres’ second portrait of Napoleon Bonaparte. The promising young student of David, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (1780-1867), was one of several artists to receive an official commission to portray Napoleon dressed in one of the many different Coronation robes that the Emperor wore during the […]
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PaintingPhotograph of Prince-President Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte
On 11 December 1848, Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte was elected (the first, and only) President of the Second Republic, by universal male suffrage. It was from the Elysée-National (the Elysée Palace, chosen by the Assembly to be the official residence of the President of the Republic) that the future Emperor prepared the coup d’etat of 2 December […]
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PaintingPortrait of Joseph Bonaparte
Joseph Bonaparte was born on 7 January 1768 just over a year earlier than his brother Napoleon. He studied Law in Pisa in 1787 and began his career in Corsica, as a lawyer in Bastia, then as a judge at the Ajaccio Law court just as the French Revolution broke out. He took refuge with […]
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PaintingNapoleon emerging from his tomb [Allegory of the transfer of Napoleon’s mortal remains from St Helena to Paris]
The title of this work is a quotation from the Emperor’s last will and testament, indeed it is one of its most quoted lines: “It is my wish that my ashes may repose on the banks of the Seine, in the midst of the French people, whom I have loved so well”. For this […]
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Painting / Directory / 1st EmpireInterior [a view of the room at Longwood where Napoleon died on St Helena]
The Comte de Las Cases described the configuration of the rooms at Longwood House in the Memorial as follows: “The entrance to the house was through a room which had just been built, and which was intended to answer the double purpose of an anti-chamber and a dining-room. This apartment led to another, which was […]
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Painting / Directory / 1st EmpirePortrait of Treasury Minister François-Nicolas Mollien
On his return from Austerlitz, Napoleon decreed on 17 March, 1806, that his ministers should be painted by some of the best painters of the era (Gros, Kinson, Prudhon, Lefèvre inter alia) and that these likenesses should hang in the salon adjacent to the Salon des Maréchaux in the Tuileries Palace. Amongst these ‘civilian marshals’ […]
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Painting / 2nd Republic / 2nd EmpireThe Congress of Paris, 25 February – 30 March 1856
Édouard-Louis Dubufe was the son of the painter Claude-Marie-Paul Dubufe and a student of Jacques-Louis David. When this painting was commissioned for Versailles, Dubufe had already produced famous portraits such as that of the dramatic actress Rachel in 1850 and the portrait of the Empress Eugenie in 1854. A highly political picture The painting commemorated […]
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Painting / Directory / 1st EmpireOssian’s Dream (Le Songe d’Ossian)
In August 1797, the future Grand Master of the Imperial University, Jean-Pierre-Louis de Fontanes, wrote a letter praising the young general Bonaparte to the skies. “It is said”, he enthused, “that you always have a copy of Ossian in your pocket – even in the midst of battles”. The sixteen-year-old Lamartine wrote of his own […]
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Painting / Directory / 1st EmpirePortrait of Caroline Murat, Grande-duchesse of Clèves and of Berg
This portrait, painted in 1807, marks the meeting of two exceptional women: Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun, survivor of the Ancien Regime, and Caroline Bonaparte, sister of Emperor Napoleon I, a new ruler in an invented land. Vigée Le Brun was, in effect, an escapee of the Revolution. Already a well-known portraitist from her early […]
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Painting / Directory / 1st EmpireSt Helena 1816 – Napoleon dictating to Count Las Cases the Account of his campaigns
When the Scottish painter William Quiller Orchardson exhibited this painting at the Royal Academy in 1892, he was sixty years old and had established a long career, which began at the age of fifteen when he entered Edinburgh’s renowned art school, the Trustees’ Academy. Orchardson was a talented portrait artist but one of his favourite […]