Paintings

The life of Désirée Clary – a most curious individual – was to change forever following the meeting of the Bonaparte and Clary families in Marseille during the Revolutionary period. Despite harbouring no political ambitions, this bourgeois lady from the south of France was eventually obliged to join her husband, Bernadotte (who ascended to the […]

This contemporary portrait of the empress Marie Louise is a perfect example of an official portrait. The canvas is still in its original frame, itself decorated with the usual bees. And Lefebvre’s painting clearly received imperial approval since two further slightly varied copies were made, one of which was bought by Chaumet in 1975 and […]

On 27 May, 1813, Hortense de Beauharnais left her children, Napoleon Louis and Louis-Napoleon, in the care of her mother, former French empress Josephine, and left to take the waters in Aix-en-Savoie (today known as Aix-les-Bains). Amongst her travelling party was her loyal friend, Adèle de Broc. Whilst there, on 10 June, the two ladies […]

A great defender of the “principe des nationalités” (the “nationality principle”, which encompasses the general idea that State and Nation should correspond), Napoleon III threw his support behind the unification process – initiated by the Victor-Emmanuel II, King of Piedmont-Sardinia – which was to take place on the Italian peninsula. This support was given official […]

Picking up his quill after viewing the Portrait de S.M. le Roi de Rome, one of three paintings exhibited at the Salon of 1812 by Prud’hon, the well-known writer Charles Paul Landon* was moved to offer his own textual reproduction of the work: “The august child is depicted without clothes, asleep in the grass. His head […]

After the definitive defeat of Napoleon, the Congress of Vienna made Marie Louise (1791-1847) life duchess of Parma, Piacenza, and Guastalla. The new sovereign, who Italianised her name to Maria Luigia, gave sensitive support to the arts during her 30-year reign, just as she had done as empress of France. This painting probably dates from the […]

Towards the end of the Second Empire, the legend of Napoleon began to take hold of Jean-Léon Gérôme, who proceeded to extract from the mythical Egyptian campaign such subjects that could be combined with his love for Orientalism. With the hundredth anniversary of Napoleon’s birth approaching (1869), in 1867 the artist rather appropriately came to […]

Although the Second Empire period was a financially difficult time for Monet, it nevertheless failed to shake his belief in a new, modern style of painting entirely disassociated from the masters of the past. Described by Bazille as “the best of all of us”, Monet would go on to lay the foundations of impressionism. Rebellious, radical […]

Originally from Montpellier, Alexandre Cabanel’s career was without blemish, beginning, in the most classic of fashions, with a schooling according to the 19th century academic curriculum. This was followed by the Prix de Rome in 1845 and medals at the Salon of 1853 and the Universal Exhibition of 1855. That same year, he was made […]

Sold following the death of Baron Gérard, 27 – 29 April 1837; Collection La Caze, Paris; bequeathed to the Musée du Louvre, 1869. Gérard took his first steps at the 1791 Salon as a history painter but quickly established himself in the portrait genre. During the Empire period, he was the official portraitist to the imperial aristocracy and it […]