Paintings : 166
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Painting / Directory / 1st EmpireThe Sisters, Zénaïde and Charlotte Bonaparte
In this tour de force double portrait, two sisters sit on a sofa reading a letter. They are Zénaïde and Charlotte Bonaparte, Napoleon’s nieces, and the letter is from their father, Joseph Bonaparte. David captures here not only the intimacy of siblings – the protective way they hold each other – but also a sense […]
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Painting / Directory / 1st EmpirePortrait of Marie Laczinska, Countess Walewska, later Countess d’Ornano (1786-1817)
When Baron Gérard painted this portrait of the Countess Marie Walewska in 1810, the young lady in question was twenty-three years old, and had been one of Napoleon’s mistresses for the last three years. It is not clear whether the portrait was painted before or after she gave birth to Napoleon’s son, Alexander, Count Walewski, […]
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Painting / Directory / 1st EmpireLetizia Bonaparte as a Young Woman
This unattributed portrait of Letizia Bonaparte, which today hangs in the Imperial Mother’s bedroom in Musée National de la Maison Bonaparte in Ajaccio (Corsica), is remarkable for several reasons. Most notable is that fact that despite being painted in the early nineteenth century (that is, during the sitter’s later life) it does not show her […]
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Painting / Directory / 1st Empire1814, The French Campaign
Ernest Meissonier is famous for his military paintings, and he soon attracted a following fascinated by his care for detail and the realism of his uniforms. And one of his most famous paintings, 1814, the French Campaign, singlehandedly revolutionised the genre of war painting. For there he concentrates not on the action and the fighting […]
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PaintingThe Battle of Marengo
The French Revolutionary Wars enabled Swebach to practise his talent as a draughtsman very early on, sketching from life, in pencil or ink, scenes which were then reworked in wash or watercolour. The Napoleonic campaigns next offered him multiple subjects and, abandoning the military anecdote for a while, he made a little foray into historical […]
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PaintingInauguration Ceremony of the Suez Canal at Port-Said, 17 November, 1869
Edouard Riou (1833-1900) was a Pre-Impressionist painter, a renowned illustrator of books by Jules Verne and Alexandre Dumas, and a contributor to the weekly newspaper Le tour du monde, and in 1870, at the request of Ferdinand de Lesseps, he created a souvenir album of the Empress’ voyage undertaken for the inauguration of the Suez […]
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PaintingPortrait of Elisa Baciocchi, Grand Duchess of Tuscany
Elisa Baciocchi, née Elisa Bonaparte, was the eldest of Napoleon’s three sisters, who all became imperial princesses after their brother’s coronation. Elisa was born in 1777 in Ajaccio, and she married army officer Félix Baciocchi in 1797. In 1805, she became Princess of Piombino and Lucca, then Grand-Duchess of Tuscany in 1809. Her arrival in […]
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PaintingPORTRAIT OF GÉRAUD-CHRISTOPHE-MICHEL DUROC
In 1804, Napoleon commissioned a series of portraits on the occasion of his coronation on 2 December. This picture here (one of that series), a standing portrait of one of Napoleon’s closest colleagues, Géraud-Christophe-Michel Duroc, his real name being Géraud-Christophe Michel du Roc de Brion, was painted by Jean-Antoine Gros. Gros was a friend of […]
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PaintingThe Field of Waterloo
Napoleon’s final battle has become the stuff of legend. For the British, the memory begins on the evening of 15 June 1815, as Lady Richmond gave a ball in Brussels, sobered by the news of the arrival of the French. The proximity to the battlefield amplified the effect on the civilians. The rapid chain of […]
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PaintingThe French Army crossing the Berezina on 28 November 1812
On 19 October, 1812, the Grande Armée left Moscow and began its miserable retreat. A month later, on 25 November, 1812, it arrived at the Berezina river, which barred its progression to the west. Under attack from the Russians, the army escaped destruction thanks to the sacrifice of the pontonniers of general Eblé who constructed […]