Studio of Paul Hippolyte Delaroche, (French, 1797-1856)

NAPOLEON ABDIQUANT A FONTAINEBLEAU

NAPOLEON ABDIQUANT A FONTAINEBLEAU
oil on canvas
204 x 154cm

Provenance:
John C. Henderson Collection, New York.
Private collection, Australia.
Michael Kroger Collection, Australia.
Sale, Osenat, Fontainebleau, The Michael Kroger Collection, 2 October, 2011, lot 36.
Private collection, France.
Sale, Osenat, Fontainebleau, The Empire at Fontainebleau: Historical Memories, 8 December 2019, lot 252.

Exhibited:
Melbourne, Treasures of Napoleon July-September, 1999.
Waterloo Memorial Museum, Napoléon: de Waterloo à Sainte-Hélène, la naissance de la légende, 5 May to 17 October 2021

In 1845 the German merchant Adolph Heinrich Scheletter commissioned Hippolyte Paul Delaroche (1797-1856) to paint Napoleon at Fontainebleau. Based on a description in Baron Norvin's Histoire de Napoleon of 1828, it depicts the Emperor on 31st March, 1814, the day Paris capitulated to the invading allied armies. His mud-spattered boots and overcoat bring to mind recent events and symbolise his soiled prestige.

Delaroche was one of the most famous painters of the mid-nineteenth century, with patrons throughout Europe and beyond. Although the first of his portraits of Napoleon was produced over twenty years after his exile from Europe, (and Delaroche was barely an adult at the time of Waterloo) the authenticity of his portraits was attested by people who had seen the Emperor in his prime. Nineteenth-century patrons could not believe that the artist had not actually set eyes upon his powerful model, but there is no evidence that he had.

The original version of this portrait is now in the Leipzig Museum of Fine Art. A smaller version, acquired by Queen Victoria in 1846 and now in the Royal Collection Trust, hangs at Osborne House.