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Lot Essay
This striking portrait was executed at a pivotal moment in Napoleon’s career. Having proclaimed the empire in 1804, he assumed the title of Emperor of the French and crowned himself at Notre Dame on 2 December 1804. In the following year he ascended the Italian throne and went on to lead a series of masterful military campaigns, conquering vast swathes of Europe. With the expansion of his empire came an increased demand for portraits of the Emperor by the most eminent French painters of the day. As a result, Napoleon had himself depicted in various guises: as Emperor of the French, as military commander in different types of uniform, and in group portraits of the imperial family. These were distributed throughout France and hung in the courts of Europe. While one of Lefèvre’s best-known images of Bonaparte is the full-length portrait in ceremonial robes executed in 1806 and exhibited at the salon that year, he is also often depicted, as he is in the present portrait, dressed in the attire of a colonel of the grenadiers de la garde à pied. He made a habit of wearing this simple uniform, perhaps following the examples of other sovereigns with military success such as Frederic the Great (1712-1786) and Francis I, Emperor of Austria (1768-1835). A full-length version of the present lot, also en face, painted in 1806, is now in the Châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon in Versailles (inv. no. 4222).
Lefèvre ranked alongside Jacques-Louis David and Baron Gerard as one of the most celebrated and prolific French portrait painters of his time. His portraits are renowned for their verisimilitude and sensitivity to the sitter’s likeness, a quality which the present work exemplifies. Having enjoyed the patronage of Dominique Vivant-Denon, the Director-General of Museums, he was soon appointed court artist to the emperor. In order to paint his Portrait of Napoleon as First Consul for the Hotel de Ville of Dunkirk (destroyed 1817), the artist is said to have limited himself to watching the emperor pass by (G. Lavalley, Le peintre Robert Lefèvre. Sa vie, son oeuvre, Caen, 1902, p. 71). Lefèvre had a prodigious visual memory, which enabled him to create a perfect likeness even without a model. In the same way, he succeeded in painting a remarkable portrait of Pope Pius VII in only six hours, in stark contrast to the multiple sittings which David had required from the pontiff (G. Lavalley, loc. cit., p. 83).
While it is unclear exactly when this painting entered the Londonderry collection, two portraits of Napoleon are recorded in the inventory of the collection of Charles William Vane 3rd Marquess of Londonderry in 1834 at Holdernesse House, Park Lane (later Londonderry House). More detailed inventories taken later in the century name the painter as Lefèvre. The other picture, dated 1806, remains in the Londonderry collection.
During the Napoleonic era, two members of the Londonderry family were key figures in orchestrating Napoleon’s defeat: Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh, later 2nd Marquess of Londonderry (1769-1822), at the time British Foreign Secretary, and his half-brother, Charles Stewart, British ambassador to the Viennese Court, who succeeded Castlereagh as the 3rd Marquess of Londonderry in 1822.
Castlereagh became Britain’s Foreign Secretary in 1812, when Napoleon’s empire stretched from Madrid to Warsaw. The statesman forged and maintained alliances among European powers in the struggle against Napoleon and represented Britain’s interests at international conferences, with his negotiations in Paris and Vienna being viewed as the greatest triumphs of his political career. In 1813, Castlereagh sent his half-brother, Lord Stewart, to Prussia as Britain’s principal diplomatic representative before orchestrating his appointment as Viennese ambassador in 1814. After Napoleon’s military defeat at the Battle of Waterloo in June 1815, Castlereagh was charged with conducting negotiations and designing the peace settlement. The Great Powers conferred at the Congress of Vienna, where Stewart assisted Castlereagh, and later Wellington, in the negotiations.
It is entirely possible that this portrait was given to or acquired by the celebrated Castlereagh as a memento of his former nemesis, just as Wellington is known to have been given a portrait of Napoleon in Paris in 1815 (now London, Apsley House; see British Library, Bathurst Loan 57/10). Having died without issue, it would subsequently have passed by descent to his half-brother Charles Stewart. It is, nevertheless, equally possible that the portrait was acquired directly by Stewart. A portrait of identical dimensions and matching the description, was sold in Lefèvre’s studio sale of 1831 (7-9 March 1831, lot 13). By this time Stewart had inherited the Londonderry Marquisate and had remodelled his legendary London home on a grand scale, where this painting was to hang for more than a century. He is known to have travelled in Europe extensively in the 1830s, and the monumental Parisian bronze of Ajax (lot 529), dated 1830, supports the theory that he may have visited Paris at about the time of the studio sale or shortly thereafter.
Stewart was already assembling a collection prior to his appointment in Vienna in 1815, but following his marriage to the heiress France Anne Vane Tempest in 1819, his collecting gathered pace. A letter dated 1822, detailing some £40,000 of insurance cover he arranged for his chattels during their journey from Trieste to London that year, indicates the magnitude of his collecting (Durham RO/Lo/F 433). Amongst the shipment were fifteen magnificent old master paintings, including works by two works by Correggio and one by Titian, which he had purchased from Napoleon’s sister, Caroline Murat, the deposed Queen of Naples for 9,200 livre, (thirteen of the works he ‘consigned to the hammer of Mr. Christie’ , and were sold, Christie’s Pall Mall, 12 July 1823, later selling the Correggios to the National Gallery, London, in 1834). This tangible link between Stewart and Bonaparte’s sister suggests one tantalizing route by which this painting might have entered his collection.
Lefèvre ranked alongside Jacques-Louis David and Baron Gerard as one of the most celebrated and prolific French portrait painters of his time. His portraits are renowned for their verisimilitude and sensitivity to the sitter’s likeness, a quality which the present work exemplifies. Having enjoyed the patronage of Dominique Vivant-Denon, the Director-General of Museums, he was soon appointed court artist to the emperor. In order to paint his Portrait of Napoleon as First Consul for the Hotel de Ville of Dunkirk (destroyed 1817), the artist is said to have limited himself to watching the emperor pass by (G. Lavalley, Le peintre Robert Lefèvre. Sa vie, son oeuvre, Caen, 1902, p. 71). Lefèvre had a prodigious visual memory, which enabled him to create a perfect likeness even without a model. In the same way, he succeeded in painting a remarkable portrait of Pope Pius VII in only six hours, in stark contrast to the multiple sittings which David had required from the pontiff (G. Lavalley, loc. cit., p. 83).
While it is unclear exactly when this painting entered the Londonderry collection, two portraits of Napoleon are recorded in the inventory of the collection of Charles William Vane 3rd Marquess of Londonderry in 1834 at Holdernesse House, Park Lane (later Londonderry House). More detailed inventories taken later in the century name the painter as Lefèvre. The other picture, dated 1806, remains in the Londonderry collection.
During the Napoleonic era, two members of the Londonderry family were key figures in orchestrating Napoleon’s defeat: Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh, later 2nd Marquess of Londonderry (1769-1822), at the time British Foreign Secretary, and his half-brother, Charles Stewart, British ambassador to the Viennese Court, who succeeded Castlereagh as the 3rd Marquess of Londonderry in 1822.
Castlereagh became Britain’s Foreign Secretary in 1812, when Napoleon’s empire stretched from Madrid to Warsaw. The statesman forged and maintained alliances among European powers in the struggle against Napoleon and represented Britain’s interests at international conferences, with his negotiations in Paris and Vienna being viewed as the greatest triumphs of his political career. In 1813, Castlereagh sent his half-brother, Lord Stewart, to Prussia as Britain’s principal diplomatic representative before orchestrating his appointment as Viennese ambassador in 1814. After Napoleon’s military defeat at the Battle of Waterloo in June 1815, Castlereagh was charged with conducting negotiations and designing the peace settlement. The Great Powers conferred at the Congress of Vienna, where Stewart assisted Castlereagh, and later Wellington, in the negotiations.
It is entirely possible that this portrait was given to or acquired by the celebrated Castlereagh as a memento of his former nemesis, just as Wellington is known to have been given a portrait of Napoleon in Paris in 1815 (now London, Apsley House; see British Library, Bathurst Loan 57/10). Having died without issue, it would subsequently have passed by descent to his half-brother Charles Stewart. It is, nevertheless, equally possible that the portrait was acquired directly by Stewart. A portrait of identical dimensions and matching the description, was sold in Lefèvre’s studio sale of 1831 (7-9 March 1831, lot 13). By this time Stewart had inherited the Londonderry Marquisate and had remodelled his legendary London home on a grand scale, where this painting was to hang for more than a century. He is known to have travelled in Europe extensively in the 1830s, and the monumental Parisian bronze of Ajax (lot 529), dated 1830, supports the theory that he may have visited Paris at about the time of the studio sale or shortly thereafter.
Stewart was already assembling a collection prior to his appointment in Vienna in 1815, but following his marriage to the heiress France Anne Vane Tempest in 1819, his collecting gathered pace. A letter dated 1822, detailing some £40,000 of insurance cover he arranged for his chattels during their journey from Trieste to London that year, indicates the magnitude of his collecting (Durham RO/Lo/F 433). Amongst the shipment were fifteen magnificent old master paintings, including works by two works by Correggio and one by Titian, which he had purchased from Napoleon’s sister, Caroline Murat, the deposed Queen of Naples for 9,200 livre, (thirteen of the works he ‘consigned to the hammer of Mr. Christie’ , and were sold, Christie’s Pall Mall, 12 July 1823, later selling the Correggios to the National Gallery, London, in 1834). This tangible link between Stewart and Bonaparte’s sister suggests one tantalizing route by which this painting might have entered his collection.