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Lot Essay
This commanding portrait of Napoleon Bonaparte is at once an icon of imperial splendour and an object of remarkable historical significance. The exceptional circumstances that led to its presence at Ardgowan offer a colourful tale of chance encounters in the final days of the Napoleonic era.
The treaty of Fontainebleau, signed on 11 April 1814 drew to a close over two decades of warfare in Europe, and sealed the fate of the French expansionist Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, who was forced to abdicate unconditionally. The treaty granted the defeated ruler sovereignty over the small Mediterranean island of Elba, off the Tuscan coast, where he was to live in permanent exile. The fall of the Emperor had immediate consequences for the British Isles, effectively putting an end to the Continental Blockade that had restricted both its trade and the movements of its citizens since 1806: travelling was finally possible again. Sir Michael Shaw Stewart, whose father and namesake had in 1812 become 5th baronet and inherited Ardgowan in Renfrewshire, Scotland, was among those who immediately seized the opportunity to set sail to the continent on a Grand Tour. Aged 27 at the time of departure, Shaw Stewart kept a detailed diary relating his adventures, encounters and thoughts, which he intended for his parents. This account not only provides a vivid portrait of post-Napoleonic Europe but it also affords a fascinating insight into the history of Lefèvre’s fine Portrait of Napoleon.
After an extensive visit of the Low Countries and Germany -- where he had already begun collecting Napoleonic memorabilia – Shaw Stewart finally reached Italy. His first halt on the peninsula was Trieste, where he met Jérôme Bonaparte, the former King of Westphalia and Napoleon’s brother. As he was planning to visit Elba, Shaw Stewart offered Jérôme Bonaparte to take his letters to Napoleon, his sister Princess Pauline Borghese and his mother Letizia Bonaparte, both of whom resided with the fallen Emperor on the Tuscan island. Shaw Stewart reached Elba too late to meet the legendary ruler: on 26 February 1815, in a final act of defiance, Napoleon had escaped the island and was about to march on Paris for a short-lived restoration of his imperial rule, a period known as the ‘Hundred Days’. Nonetheless, while at Elba Shaw Stewart met Napoleon’s mother Letizia Bonaparte (fig. 1), more commonly known as ‘Madame Mère’ an abbreviation of her official title ‘Son Altesse Impériale Madame Mère de l’Empereur’. Shaw Stewart was graciously received by Madame Mère, who warmly thanked him for delivering her son’s letters to her. Following her daughter Pauline who had already left for Paris, Madame Mère was in the midst of packing for the French capital. As related in Shaw Stewart’s diary, she conversed with her English visitors for about twenty minutes ‘in a natural unaffected manner’: ‘She made no concealment of the Emperor having gone because the contract signed by the allied forces had been broken, in that he had never been paid a farthing [out of the annual pension that had been promised to him according to the treaty of Fontainebleau], neither he nor any of his family, and their property had been confiscated, particularly Cardinal Fesche’s house and furniture at Paris’. She further shared her fears regarding her upcoming journey: ‘She hoped not to be molested. She said she had been told the English would take her prisoner. And carry her into England. But she added I don’t believe the English would make war on an Old Woman.’ Madame Mère evidently made an impression on the young Scottish traveller: ‘I confess I was especially surprised in this Mother of so much Mischief. And whatever her children or her heart may be, she certainly is a fine, handsome old woman with a pleasing natural manner and shows a good deal of good sense in her conversation.’ Madame Mère subsequently invited Shaw Stewart to have a tour of Napoleon’s house and gardens, where the young visitor acquired souvenirs from the library: ‘I could not resist taking two pamphlets out of [the library], which [the emperor] had lately been reading and which lay close by where he sat’. These extracts from Shaw Stewart's diary also provide further evidence of his seemingly insatiable appetite for keeping mementos of his time amongst Napoleon's family. From the library at Elba, Shaw Stewart acquired the pamphlet for the funeral oration of the Empress Josephine, which, it was said, Napoleon had been reading only the night before.
This was not to be Shaw Stewart’s last encounter with the Emperor’s mother. At the beginning of 1816, when Napoleon had been definitively defeated and sent into his final exile to the island of Saint-Helena, Shaw Stewart spent a ‘very pleasant and extraordinary evening’ at Pauline Borghese’s house in Rome. Madame Mère and a number of Bonaparte family members were in attendance. On this occasion, Madame Mère, evidently charmed by the young gentleman whom she had met two years earlier, presented Shaw Stewart with the present portrait. Shaw Stewart commented on the irony of such gift: ‘How strange a thing to possess and to me most extremely interesting’. He also shared his astonishment at finding himself in this company: ‘I could not help again and again reflecting how extraordinary it was to be in the same room with the mother, sister and brother of the man who had made all Europe tremble and who in England we so particularly feared and hated.’ Embedded in the picture’s frame was a lock of Napoleon’s hair, displayed like a saintly relic, thereby endowing the object with an almost sacral quality. Ironically, the lock of hair was removed for safekeeping during the 2nd World War. Shaw Stewart’s reaction to the gift encapsulates both the fascination and repulsion that the Emperor exerted on the rest of Europe at the time. It is certainly the same mixture of feelings that prompted his fervent collecting of Napoleonic mementos throughout his journey on the continent. Due to its scale, quality and exceptional provenance, Lefèvre’s commanding portrait would undoubtedly have constituted the crowning jewel of this heterogeneous collection of Napoleonic memorabilia.
This portrait is the most successful and enduring composition devised by Robert Lefèvre. In the years that followed his 1804 coronation, Napoleon sought to ensure the dissemination of his new imperial image. He entrusted the foremost painters of the day with this crucial task: Jacques-Louis David, Jean-Auguste Dominique Ingres, François Gérard and Robert Lefèvre, who was appointed Napoleon’s official portrait painter. The present composition, Napoleon in Coronation Robes, is Lefèvre’s most famous invention, of which no fewer than 37 replicas were requested from 1806 onwards, to decorate official state buildings or the private homes of the Emperor’s family, friends and supporters. The portrait exists in two forms. The first, more widely disseminated type depicts Napoleon bare-headed, with his left hand resting on his sword hilt (for instance, Paris, Musée National de la Légion d’Honneur from 1807). The second, rarer formula, corresponding to the Shaw Stewart picture, has Napoleon crowned and extending his left arm downwards (Versailles, Château de Versailles from 1811). The Emperor was famously reluctant to sit for painters and therefore Lefèvre’s likeness, like most of other portraits of the sovereign, was devised using engravings produced to commemorate the coronation, namely those illustrating the Livre du Sacre (fig. 2). Lefèvre’s remarkable abilities at rendering the textures of rich fabrics, manifest in the treatment of the red velvet, gold threads and ermine fur in this portrait, earned him the favourable nickname of ‘the French Van Dyck’. Few full-length state portraits of Napoleon of this scale and quality have been offered in recent years and in importance and rarity, the Shaw Stewart picture can compare with Antoine-Jean Gros’s Portrait of Napoleon Bonaparte as First Consul (Christie’s, London, 8 July 2005, lot 110, £1,352,000).
The portrait depicts the Emperor clad in all the trappings of the imperial office: he is crowned in a gold laurel crown and holds a sceptre topped by the imperial eagle, while the hand of Justice and the orb rest on a blue velvet cushion behind him. The collar of the ‘Légion d’honneur’, the meritocratic order founded by the Emperor hangs from his neck. Napoleon’s crimson velvet cloak is embroidered with the bee, the new imperial symbol intended to replace the monarchic fleur-de-lys dismissed for its Ancient Régime overtones. Running above the ermine hem of the cloak, the letter N is surrounded by interlaced sprigs of laurel, oak and olive trees. This symbolism was part of a new iconography of power, carefully designed to break away from the pre-revolutionary Bourbon dynasty. However, the picture’s grand setting incorporating the theatrical curtain in the background, the throne and the cushion supporting further regalia, seems to reference overtly Hyacinthe Rigaud’s celebrated Portrait of Louis XIV in Coronation Costume (fig. 3; 1701; Paris, Musée du Louvre), thereby placing Napoleon within a prestigious and authoritative lineage of great French monarchs. That Madame Mère would have owned a picture of her son in coronation garb is unsurprising if somewhat ironic. Indeed, despite Jacques-Louis David depicting her in a prominent tribune in his magisterial Coronation of Napoleon (Paris, Musée du Louvre), she had notoriously refused to attend the ceremony, of which she disapproved.
The treaty of Fontainebleau, signed on 11 April 1814 drew to a close over two decades of warfare in Europe, and sealed the fate of the French expansionist Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, who was forced to abdicate unconditionally. The treaty granted the defeated ruler sovereignty over the small Mediterranean island of Elba, off the Tuscan coast, where he was to live in permanent exile. The fall of the Emperor had immediate consequences for the British Isles, effectively putting an end to the Continental Blockade that had restricted both its trade and the movements of its citizens since 1806: travelling was finally possible again. Sir Michael Shaw Stewart, whose father and namesake had in 1812 become 5th baronet and inherited Ardgowan in Renfrewshire, Scotland, was among those who immediately seized the opportunity to set sail to the continent on a Grand Tour. Aged 27 at the time of departure, Shaw Stewart kept a detailed diary relating his adventures, encounters and thoughts, which he intended for his parents. This account not only provides a vivid portrait of post-Napoleonic Europe but it also affords a fascinating insight into the history of Lefèvre’s fine Portrait of Napoleon.
After an extensive visit of the Low Countries and Germany -- where he had already begun collecting Napoleonic memorabilia – Shaw Stewart finally reached Italy. His first halt on the peninsula was Trieste, where he met Jérôme Bonaparte, the former King of Westphalia and Napoleon’s brother. As he was planning to visit Elba, Shaw Stewart offered Jérôme Bonaparte to take his letters to Napoleon, his sister Princess Pauline Borghese and his mother Letizia Bonaparte, both of whom resided with the fallen Emperor on the Tuscan island. Shaw Stewart reached Elba too late to meet the legendary ruler: on 26 February 1815, in a final act of defiance, Napoleon had escaped the island and was about to march on Paris for a short-lived restoration of his imperial rule, a period known as the ‘Hundred Days’. Nonetheless, while at Elba Shaw Stewart met Napoleon’s mother Letizia Bonaparte (fig. 1), more commonly known as ‘Madame Mère’ an abbreviation of her official title ‘Son Altesse Impériale Madame Mère de l’Empereur’. Shaw Stewart was graciously received by Madame Mère, who warmly thanked him for delivering her son’s letters to her. Following her daughter Pauline who had already left for Paris, Madame Mère was in the midst of packing for the French capital. As related in Shaw Stewart’s diary, she conversed with her English visitors for about twenty minutes ‘in a natural unaffected manner’: ‘She made no concealment of the Emperor having gone because the contract signed by the allied forces had been broken, in that he had never been paid a farthing [out of the annual pension that had been promised to him according to the treaty of Fontainebleau], neither he nor any of his family, and their property had been confiscated, particularly Cardinal Fesche’s house and furniture at Paris’. She further shared her fears regarding her upcoming journey: ‘She hoped not to be molested. She said she had been told the English would take her prisoner. And carry her into England. But she added I don’t believe the English would make war on an Old Woman.’ Madame Mère evidently made an impression on the young Scottish traveller: ‘I confess I was especially surprised in this Mother of so much Mischief. And whatever her children or her heart may be, she certainly is a fine, handsome old woman with a pleasing natural manner and shows a good deal of good sense in her conversation.’ Madame Mère subsequently invited Shaw Stewart to have a tour of Napoleon’s house and gardens, where the young visitor acquired souvenirs from the library: ‘I could not resist taking two pamphlets out of [the library], which [the emperor] had lately been reading and which lay close by where he sat’. These extracts from Shaw Stewart's diary also provide further evidence of his seemingly insatiable appetite for keeping mementos of his time amongst Napoleon's family. From the library at Elba, Shaw Stewart acquired the pamphlet for the funeral oration of the Empress Josephine, which, it was said, Napoleon had been reading only the night before.
This was not to be Shaw Stewart’s last encounter with the Emperor’s mother. At the beginning of 1816, when Napoleon had been definitively defeated and sent into his final exile to the island of Saint-Helena, Shaw Stewart spent a ‘very pleasant and extraordinary evening’ at Pauline Borghese’s house in Rome. Madame Mère and a number of Bonaparte family members were in attendance. On this occasion, Madame Mère, evidently charmed by the young gentleman whom she had met two years earlier, presented Shaw Stewart with the present portrait. Shaw Stewart commented on the irony of such gift: ‘How strange a thing to possess and to me most extremely interesting’. He also shared his astonishment at finding himself in this company: ‘I could not help again and again reflecting how extraordinary it was to be in the same room with the mother, sister and brother of the man who had made all Europe tremble and who in England we so particularly feared and hated.’ Embedded in the picture’s frame was a lock of Napoleon’s hair, displayed like a saintly relic, thereby endowing the object with an almost sacral quality. Ironically, the lock of hair was removed for safekeeping during the 2nd World War. Shaw Stewart’s reaction to the gift encapsulates both the fascination and repulsion that the Emperor exerted on the rest of Europe at the time. It is certainly the same mixture of feelings that prompted his fervent collecting of Napoleonic mementos throughout his journey on the continent. Due to its scale, quality and exceptional provenance, Lefèvre’s commanding portrait would undoubtedly have constituted the crowning jewel of this heterogeneous collection of Napoleonic memorabilia.
This portrait is the most successful and enduring composition devised by Robert Lefèvre. In the years that followed his 1804 coronation, Napoleon sought to ensure the dissemination of his new imperial image. He entrusted the foremost painters of the day with this crucial task: Jacques-Louis David, Jean-Auguste Dominique Ingres, François Gérard and Robert Lefèvre, who was appointed Napoleon’s official portrait painter. The present composition, Napoleon in Coronation Robes, is Lefèvre’s most famous invention, of which no fewer than 37 replicas were requested from 1806 onwards, to decorate official state buildings or the private homes of the Emperor’s family, friends and supporters. The portrait exists in two forms. The first, more widely disseminated type depicts Napoleon bare-headed, with his left hand resting on his sword hilt (for instance, Paris, Musée National de la Légion d’Honneur from 1807). The second, rarer formula, corresponding to the Shaw Stewart picture, has Napoleon crowned and extending his left arm downwards (Versailles, Château de Versailles from 1811). The Emperor was famously reluctant to sit for painters and therefore Lefèvre’s likeness, like most of other portraits of the sovereign, was devised using engravings produced to commemorate the coronation, namely those illustrating the Livre du Sacre (fig. 2). Lefèvre’s remarkable abilities at rendering the textures of rich fabrics, manifest in the treatment of the red velvet, gold threads and ermine fur in this portrait, earned him the favourable nickname of ‘the French Van Dyck’. Few full-length state portraits of Napoleon of this scale and quality have been offered in recent years and in importance and rarity, the Shaw Stewart picture can compare with Antoine-Jean Gros’s Portrait of Napoleon Bonaparte as First Consul (Christie’s, London, 8 July 2005, lot 110, £1,352,000).
The portrait depicts the Emperor clad in all the trappings of the imperial office: he is crowned in a gold laurel crown and holds a sceptre topped by the imperial eagle, while the hand of Justice and the orb rest on a blue velvet cushion behind him. The collar of the ‘Légion d’honneur’, the meritocratic order founded by the Emperor hangs from his neck. Napoleon’s crimson velvet cloak is embroidered with the bee, the new imperial symbol intended to replace the monarchic fleur-de-lys dismissed for its Ancient Régime overtones. Running above the ermine hem of the cloak, the letter N is surrounded by interlaced sprigs of laurel, oak and olive trees. This symbolism was part of a new iconography of power, carefully designed to break away from the pre-revolutionary Bourbon dynasty. However, the picture’s grand setting incorporating the theatrical curtain in the background, the throne and the cushion supporting further regalia, seems to reference overtly Hyacinthe Rigaud’s celebrated Portrait of Louis XIV in Coronation Costume (fig. 3; 1701; Paris, Musée du Louvre), thereby placing Napoleon within a prestigious and authoritative lineage of great French monarchs. That Madame Mère would have owned a picture of her son in coronation garb is unsurprising if somewhat ironic. Indeed, despite Jacques-Louis David depicting her in a prominent tribune in his magisterial Coronation of Napoleon (Paris, Musée du Louvre), she had notoriously refused to attend the ceremony, of which she disapproved.