Exhibition Catalogue: "ITALIAN LIVES: NAPOLEON’S THREE SISTERS"

 
From the publishers: 

The exhibition “Italian Lives: Napoleon's Three Sisters” is currently on show at the Musée Marmottan in Paris, from 3 October, 2013, to 2 February, 2014. Napoleon I's sisters, Elisa, Pauline and Caroline, all had Italian destinies. The first became princess of Lucca, then Grand Duchess of Tuscany, representing the Emperor in Italy. The second married a Roman prince, Camillo Borghese, and lived with him between Paris and Rome, earning in both cities the sobriquet of “Queen of Beauty”. Last but not least, Caroline married General Murat and reigned sumptuously with him in Naples.
 
The exhibition evokes the three different destinies of the Bonaparte sisters, starting in Paris during the Consulate and blossoming during the Empire in Italy. Like all other members of the Bonaparte family, Napoleon's sisters liked beautiful houses and were enlightened benefactors. In Paris and in Italy, they left their mark: in the creation of interiors, in their championing of certain painters, in the encouragement of certain manufacturies and the objet d'art industry. The Grand Duchess of Tuscany and the Queen of Naples sponsored their court theatres, their musicians and their modistes operating a policy of peaceful, cultural conquest in Italy.
 
The exhibition brings together from great collections Europe-wide portraits of the three sisters, alone or in a group, with their families or friends, in the places where they lived and which were utterly transformed as a result of their interventions. It also shows works of art which were created under the influence of the three sisters, namely objects and accessories from their everyday lives and jewels which enhanced their sumptuous court outfits. […]
 
In French and in English.
Contains 100 illustrations.

Maria Teresa Caracciolo, author
Curator of the exhibition and author of this catalogue, Maria Teresa Caracciolo is an art historian, member of the CNRS and a specialist of 18th and 19th-century European painting and of Franco-Italian relationships during the Revolution and the Empire.