Saturday, February 10, 2018

MMFA 2018: Napoleon

NAPOLEON
ART AND COURT LIFE IN THE IMPERIAL PALACE
Welcome to the Imperial Palace!

February 3 - May 6, 2018

The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA) presents a major exhibition that re-creates the grandiose ambiance of Napoleon’s court through the eyes of the Grand Officers and artists of the “Emperor’s Household.” Over 400 art works and objects from the French palaces, most of them never seen before in North America, reveal the essential role played by the Imperial Household during Napoleon’s reign, from his coronation in 1804 to his exile in 1815.


Some fifty distinguished lenders have allowed MMFA to bring to Montreal works from such institutions as the Louvre, the Château de Fontainebleau, the Mobilier national, the Musée national des châteaux de Malmaison et de Bois-Préau, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and the Art Institute of Chicago.


The public will see the six departments that made up the “Imperial Household”. The institution with its 3,500 employees was responsible for the daily lives and ceremonies of Napoleon and his family. By studying the leading figures of the court, the visitors will discover all the luxury and prestige of palace life. In order to ally himself with the old nobility and register his new dynasty as a continuation of the Ancien Régime, Napoleon dreamed up an etiquette hedged about with strict regulations.


An innovative layout re-creates the splendour of the apartments by incorporating mapping projections. Visitors will discover paintings, sculptures, furniture, silverware and porcelain, tapestries, silk hangings and court dress illustrating the opulence characteristic of the Empire style displayed to serve the spectacle of power.
  

The exhibition is laid out according to the roles of the leading figures in the service of the Imperial family, which helped to shape the image of power. Grand Officers, chamberlains, equerries, master of ceremonies, ladies-in-waiting, pages, artists and artisans were all involved in composing the Imperial legend. Their origins, functions and everyday responsibilities fashioned the Emperor’s life. The exhibition follows the circuits of the courtiers as they moved through the living areas within the palace, the public staterooms that were open to visitors and also the private apartments strictly separated from the rest of the palace, where Napoleon shut himself off to conduct the business of government.


As a new ruler, Napoleon Bonaparte seized power at the end of the French Revolution. Transforming the Republic into a monarchy, he was depicted by the court painters as a modern sovereign and hero. With a series of portraits and historical scenes, the introductory gallery shows how artists like François Gérard, Antoine-Jean Gros and Andrea Appiani had to conform to precise requirements imposed by the Imperial administration in order to create visual propaganda glorifying the head of state.




The MMFA Napoleon Collection

In addition to the items that arrived from other institutions, some twenty of the works and objects presented in this exhibition are from the holdings of the MMFA. Some come from the large collection of objects bequeathed to the Museum by the collector and amateur historian Ben Weider: the recently restored Half-length Portrait of Napoleon in Court Robes (about 1805- 1814), an oil on canvas from the studio of François Gérard; one of Napoleon’s cocked hats worn during the Russian campaign, about 1812; riding gloves and a shirt worn by the Emperor on Saint Helena. Visitors will remark an outstanding pair of spindle vases in Sèvres porcelain, Fire and Water (1806), acquired in 2017. Also from Sèvres, a tea service presented to Cardinal Fesch, Grand Chaplain of the Imperial Household. This collection also contains a discovery, a sketch painted on canvas by Horace Vernet, Napoleon, on the Eve of the Battle of Borodino, Presenting to His Staff Officers the Portrait of the King of Rome Recently Painted by Gérard (1813).



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Click on images to enlarge them.

All photos in this article © Nadia Slejskova
Visit my previous article about a Napoleon exhibition here.


For more information about the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts exhibitions and activities, visit the museum's website.

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