Margaret’s Blog

Napoleon in Cuba at the Museo Napoleonica, Vibert’s painting of Napoleon Planning his coronation, correction to Finding Napoleon in Cuba Part 3

Napoleonic Links from St Helena to Cuba As I posted in June 2011, Napoleon Bonaparte isn’t the only thing interesting about St Helena Island. After all, Napoleon’s exile, which ran from 1815 to 1821, only accounts for a moment in the island’s 500-year history. So this past year, when I wrote an article about links […]

Finding Napoleon in Virginia Again The Napoleon Bonaparte exhibit at Richmond’s Museum of Fine Arts brought together exquisite artifacts, each fascinating in its own right. As a collection, they tell a visual story of Napoleon’s meteoric rise to power. Here are three pieces that touch on Napoleon Bonaparte’s early career: Portrait of Napoleon Bonaparte as […]

Napoleonic Historical Society Conference At the end of September, the Napoleonic Historical Society held its annual conference in Williamsburg, Virginia. Imagine a weekend discussing Napoleon Bonaparte with other enthusiasts (and critics)! In addition to social events, there were interesting presentations on cultural and military topics, ranging from women in Napoleonic art to guerrilla warfare in […]

Napoleon: The Imperial Household Exhibit at the VMFA A fabulous exhibit of art and artifacts from Napoleon Bonaparte’s various households has been visiting the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. It’s moving on to Kansas City’s Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (October 19, 2018 – March 3, 2019) and then to the Chateau de Fontainbleau (April 3, […]

Twice in two days this month, Napoleon Bonaparte made news in the New York Times. I’m not sure how much he would have appreciated either article. Napoleon Bonaparte as Cultural Icon In a clash of new and old, current icons Beyoncé and Jay-Z filmed their latest music video in the Louvre Museum. They and their […]

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 […]