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. …
When I recently rediscovered Georgette Heyer’s historical novel, AN INFAMOUS ARMY, I realized it was the first Napoleonic novel I had ever read. I was thirteen when my mother introduced me to Heyer’s famous Regency novels. Most of them are love stories in the mode of Jane Austin. AN INFAMOUS ARMY is a strange mixture: …
My favorite Novel about Napoleon Bonaparte (sort of) Read More »
In this election season when Americans are focused on winners and losers, I came across two relevant paintings of Napoleon Bonaparte. The first shows the Emperor in 1807 at the height of his power. The second shows the Emperor seven years later in the midst of failure. Ernest Meissonier painted them during France’s Second Empire …
