Ivory Miniature of the Empress Josephine by Ferdinand Quaglia, 1814Empress Josephine was a style maven of her time. According to Dr. Alice Mackrell in her book "Art and Fashion" (Batsford Books, 2005) , Empress Josephine was "inspired by the example of Queen Marie Antoinette whom she saw as a kindred spirit." Apparently Josephine also surrounded herself at Malmaison with furnishings that had belonged to the Queen.
There is another curious connection between Queen Marie Antoinette and Empress Josephine. Jean-Baptiste Isabey, a painter, initially began his career in 1785 by painting snuffboxes. He received the royal patronage of Marie Antoinette, painting portrait miniatures for her as well as designing clothes for the queen. After the revolution, he rose to even greater fame after painting several portrait miniatures of the Emperor Napolean and Empress Josephine. These became "so celebrated that reproductions of them decorated the snuffboxes of the fashionable."
2 comments:
Josephine couldn't have guessed that Napoleon would divorce her to marry Marie-Antoinette's grandniece...
Isabey was indeed the most gifted miniaturist of his time. I love his work.
At a special preview tour on Sunday night at the newly renovated Art Gallery of Ontario, I saw another miniature portraits of Empress Josephine on display in one of the Thompson Galleries. I marvel at the skill required to work on something so small and so delicate.
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