Okay, not the Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, but how about his American great-nephew? In 1908, U.S. Attorney General Charles Joseph Bonaparte (1851 – 1921), founded the first corps of federal government investigators. Those thirty-four Special Agents became the Bureau of Investigation, later called the Federal Bureau of Investigation. With the FBI dominating today’s headlines, I thought I’d …
In Cuba’s Museo Napoleónico, my favorite item is Napoleon Bonaparte’s pocket watch (featured in my last post). My second favorite is Jean-Georges Vibert’s painting, Planning for the Coronation. In it, the Consul-for-Life Napoleon Bonaparte is rearranging dolls on a floor plan of Notre Dame Cathedral. If you know Jacques-Louis David’s monumental painting, Le Sacré (The Coronation), …
If you read my last blog post, you know I visited Havana’s Museo Napoleónico. Thanks to the Cuban sugar magnate, Julio Lobo, the museum houses the Western Hemisphere’s largest exhibition of Napoleon Bonaparte’s artifacts. My favorite piece is Napoleon’s pocket watch from his exile on St Helena. But how did it end up in Cuba? Like so …
Who knew one of the world’s great Napoleonic museums is in Cuba? Surprisingly, Havana’s Museo Napoleónico contains the Western Hemisphere’s largest collection of artifacts associated with Napoleon Bonaparte. Thanks to the Napoleonic Historical Society, I got to visit it. The collection belonged to Julio Lobo (1898 – 1983), Cuba’s richest sugar cane magnate. Lobo, who …
My last post highlighted the artist Kehinde Wiley’s satiric imitation of Jacques-Louis David’s painting of Napoleon Bonaparte Crosssing the Alps. David painted five versions of this iconic image. It turns out one of these—the one that usually hangs in the Palace of Versailles—is on long-term loan to new Louvre Abu Dhabi in the United Arab …
Of course that’s not Barak Obama on Napoleon’s horse in the artist Kehinde Wiley’s imitation of Jacques-Louis David’s Bonaparte Crossing the Alps. An anonymous black man has taken General Bonaparte’s place. So why bring up Barak Obama? Well, our (deeply missed) ex-president has chosen Wiley to paint his official portrait for the Smithsonian’s Portrait Gallery. …
The Portland Art Museum was one of those rare museums where I couldn’t find a work representing Napoleon Bonaparte or any aspect of his reign. An internet search through their collection, however, revealed this piece. It’s a photograph called Le Retraite de Napoléon (Napoleon’s Retreat). The artist Jim Riswold must have a dark sense of …
May 21st is St Helena Day, when the local population celebrates the remote island’s discovery in 1502. For the 4,500 residents, it’s a big holiday with speeches, parades and picnics. I haven’t found any historical record of Napoleon Bonaparte joining in the festivities during his exile there. In all likelihood, he preferred that the place …
Finding Napoleon (and Shakespeare) on St Helena Day Read More »
Last November I posted about Ernest Meissonier’s paintings of Napoleon Bonaparte. This month I came across another of Meissonier’s paintings (shown above) in the Walters Museum in Baltimore, Maryland. It depicts a sad but stoic Napoleon at the end of his reign. Meissonier painted his images of Napoleon Bonaparte fifty years after the emperor’s defeat. …
