c. 1810

Portrait of Empress Marie Louise Bonaparte

Empress Marie-Louise Bonaparte of France is the subject of this wax miniature, which exemplifies the Neoclassical style which characterized Napoleon’s reign. The empress is shown classically draped with her head crowned in a diadem, imagery evoking Hera, the Greek goddess of marriage and childbirth. After the annulment of his childless marriage with his first wife, Empress Josephine, Napoleon’s marriage to Marie-Louise—a member of the German and Austrian royal house of Hapsburg and great-niece of Marie Antoinette—signaled a desire to stabilize his dynasty and connect himself to historic European monarchies. This wax sculpture strongly resembles portraits made to celebrate the wedding. It draws particularly from the official marble portrait of Marie-Louise commissioned by Napoleon from the sculptor Francois Joseph Bosio, which was shown in the Parisian Salon of 1810 and widely reproduced.