Andrea Appiani (1754-1817) ‘Apotheosis of Napoleon’,1807, Palazzo Reale, Milan
Napoleon's Coronation Crown in the Louvre, Paris (image © David Liuzzo)
leaf crown and cloak, were included.
Napoleon’s interest in the engraved gemstones into their design.
Engraved gemstones
glyptic arts culminated in founding a school in Paris to instruct were believed to endow the wearer with their various depicted
on the engraving of semi-precious stones and, from 1805, qualities such as heroism, faithfulness and love; as a result,
extending the Prix de Rome to include gem engravers.
they became enormously popular in French society.
As stated
in Diana Scarisbrick’s essay the Journal des Dames, dated
25th day of Ventôse 1805 describes how the ideal Napoleonic
woman should incorporate the cameo into her wardrobe: ‘A
fashionable woman wears cameos on her belt, cameos on
her necklace, a cameo on each of her bracelets, a cameo on
her diadem… ancient stones, and, failing them, carved shells,
are more and more fashionable than ever’.
In ‘Joséphine,
impératrice et reine’, Frédéric Masson notes how ‘dans les
grandes occasions, elle [Joséphine] préfère ses camées même
au diamants et aux pierres de couleur’ (Masson, p357, 1905,
Paris).
The painting ‘Joséphine de Beauharnais’ by Appiani daughter
and busts by Houdon and Chaudet illustrate how the empress
incorporated cameos into her wardrobe.
Masson goes on to
detail how she would secure her green velvet riding jacket with
a gold belt decorated with cameos.
We ‘L’affirmation, la consécration, l’éternisation de sa figure’
part (Masson: 374, Paris, 1905) [the affirmation, the consecration,
originally the eternization of her image]
Joséphine possessed an extensive and well curated collection
of antiquities; mostly recovered from Pompei or Herculaneum,
the collection included Etruscan vases, statues, carved busts,
as well as cameos and intaglios.
can compare this to cameo parure, now
of Swedish royal collection, which was
given to Joséphine by Napoleon in
(Please see: https://www.google.com/
1809
enGB916GB916&oq=swedish+royal+cameo
&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-816).
were
These
are mostly 19th
carvings, by artists such as Rega and Girometti, and
individually and not necessarily intended to be
together.As
with the present lots, when an inventory of
was taken upon Joséphine’s death in 1814, the cameo
was not mentioned.It
jewels
parure
is believed that it was inherited
son, Eugène Beauharnais who then gave it to his
Joséphine upon her marriage to King Oscar I of
Norway in 1823.current
lots are extremely
survivors from an Imperial age, since when many of these
pieces have been disassembled as tastes have
It
rare
changed.
vein
begs the question, could these two diadems have
included many undocumented sales or same
as the Swedish cameo parure?
It must be said that, according to ‘Inventaire après décès de
search?q=swedish+royal+cameo+tiara&rlz=1C1GCEB_
l’impératrice Joséphine à Malmaison’ by Serge Grandjean,
Joséphine’s collection ‘ne soit guère connue dans ses
+tiara&aqs=chrome..69i57j0i22i30.24234j1j7
détails, en dépit de certains témoignages contemporains
unanimement flatteurs’ [was hardly known in any details
century
apart from a number of unanimously flattering testimonies].
In addition, she was notorious for modifying, rejuvenating,
worn
exchanging and selling her pieces, making tracing and
establishing firm provenance extremely challenging.
The
inventories of her jewellery show that whilst Joséphine had
by
a great collection of cameos and intaglios – there were
no details of the subjects represented or the signatures.
Sweden
After Joséphine’s death Hortense inherited a portion of her
mother’s property, including jewellery, while Eugène inherited
magnificent
Malmaison.
He kept the estate intact until financial difficulties
forced him to sell part of the inheritance in an anonymous
sale in Paris.
been
Following Eugène’s death his widow, Princess
Augusta-Amélie de Bavière, did not want the responsibility of
such a large property and, in 1829, sold a substantial portion of
the remaining collection in a sale comprising 17 sessions, each
without a catalogue.
Like Napoleon, Joséphine was
particularly enthused with carved gems.
Her children, Eugène
(1781-1824) and Hortense de Beauharnais (1783-1837), would
always endeavour to bring them back from their Italian trips.
Joséphine chose a selection of cameos to be mounted into
jewellery, while the remaining largest and most precious were
displayed in cases.
‘Les camées et les pierres gravées, qu’elle apprécie surtout
entourés de diamants et de perles fines, mais qu’elle accepte
même sans entourage’, [She especially appreciated cameos
and engraved gems which were surrounded by diamonds
and fine pearls, but she would even accept them without any
Napoleon and Joséphine’s patronage of the arts was intrinsic
surround] such was her love of cameos.
to the establishment of design during the regime.
Both sought
The two diadems offered here, which are thought to have been to affirm their power through image and in the same vein as
part of the empress’s collection, are exceptional examples of Napoleon, the ambitious Joséphine had images of herself
19th century neo-classical workmanship which incorporated recreated in every medium, including that of cameos.
It was
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