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CORRESPONDANCE PROJECT
The story so far...
NEW TEXTS ON NAPOLEONICA
As director of the Musée Napoléon (today the Louvre), appointed by Bonaparte on 19 Brumaire, An X (10 November, 1801), Vivant Denon (1747-1825) corresponded with the great and the good of the day. On the site napoleonica.org we have published the complete administrative correspondance (nearly four thousand full-text searchable letters, of which more than a hundred addressed to Napoleon I) of the man who became Napoleon's master of taste. Taken with permission from the book Vivant Denon, directeur des musées sous le Consulat et l'Empire (1802-1815) by Marie-Anne Dupuy, Isabelle le Masne de Chermont, Elaine Williamson, published in 1999 by Réunion des Musées Nationaux. In French.
The historical interest of this collection, both for the art historian and the First Empire specialist, is obvious. And it can be exploited in many different ways. See for example the fascinating story of Napoleon and the horses on the Brandenburg Gate, recounted in detail in Denon's correspondance with Napoleon.
Emilie Barthet
THIS MONTH'S PAINTING
Jupiter and Thetis by Ingres
An all-powerful god rules the heavens, a woman at his feet beseeches a favour from him, a steely-eyed eagle regards the viewer… In 1811, Ingres offered the Parisian public a scene from the Iliad which for many was an allusion to Napoleon I.
TWO HUNDRED YEARS AGO
In conformity with a consuls bill (arrêté des consuls) and paid for by the government, four history paintings and two statues were to be executed for the government every year. The subject for the paintings were to be taken from the history of the French nation and vetted by the government. The statues were to show Frenchmen who had served their country, the subjects being dictated by the government. The proportions of the pictures were fixed at five metres by four metres, and the government agreed to pay 10,000 francs for each one. The statues were to be two metres tall, and 15,000 francs was to be paid for each one. The government was to provide the marble.
Gazette de France, 26 Nivôse, An XI
26 Nivôse, An XI (16 January, 1803), the First consul asked Portalis, Ministre des Cultes, to supply 5,000 francs to the Bishop of Arras, so that this money could be given to the poor of that diocese.
26 Nivôse, An XI (16 January, 1803), Mrs Leclerc (Pauline Bonaparte) who had been spending her quarantine in Toulon after her return from Santo Domingo was allowed to make her way to Paris. It was thought that she would set out in a few days time, accompanied by her only son and Lauriston whom the First Consul had ordered to accompany his sister, the recent widow of General Leclerc.
Gazette de France, 9 Pluviôse, An XI
Wishing you an excellent, Napoleonic, week!
Peter Hicks
Historian and Web editor
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THIS WEEK:
Snippets
Fire at Lunéville
Just Published
- France since 1800, by D.L.L. Parry and Pierre Girard
- The Oxford History of the French Revolution, 2nd Edition, ed. William Doyle
What's on
- Exhibition: La Tavola di Elisa, Lucca
- Exhibition: Napoleon and Alexander I in Hildesheim (Germany)
- Exhibition: The first Italian Republic, 1802-1805
- Exhibition: Seat of Empire
The monthly titles
- Book of the Month: Revolutionary France, by Malcolm Crook
- This month's picture, Jupiter and Thetis, by Ingres
- Article of the Month, Joseph Bonaparte's American Retreat, by Patricia Tyson Stroud
- In the Collectors Corner, The Roi de Rome's Lead Soldiers
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