Lorenzo Bartolini (1777-1850) Italian, Tuscany, circa 1809

Possibly from the Collection of Joseph Fouché (1759-1820), 1^st Duke d’Otrante, Napoleon’s minister of police
Purchased by Ivan Traugott (1871-1957), before 1933  

 

Nationalmuseum Stockholm, no. 2344 (on loan until December 2013)

Charles John Alexander, Staging Power: Napoleon, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm 2010, p. 182, cat. no. 59

Lovely surface with minor wear. Back edge of proper right ear with loss, and chip to ringlet near ear. Loss to parts of two curls behind crown of head. Otherwise minor wear and small losses/chips throughout, including edges of bust. Base with repaired break on proper right side.
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RELATED  LITERATURE

Paul Marmatton, Les arts en Toscane sous Napoléon : la princesse Élisa, Paris, 1901
Mario Tinti, Lorenzo Bartolini, vols. I and II, Rome, 1930, vol. II, p. 28-29
Gerard Hubert, La Sculpture dans l’Italie Napoléonienne , Paris, 1964, pp. 356-357
Eugenio Lazzareschi, Elisa Baciocchi nella vita e nel costume del suo tempo, Lucca, 1970

Napoleon believed that the arts served the empire and should be used to demonstrate the grandeur of the state. European dynasties often reinforced their political authority and cultivated diplomatic ties through the dissemination of portraits of the royal family. Princess Elisa, Napoleon’s older sister, commissioned a variety of marble portraits of the Bonapartes, many of which she sold to the French government. Since Carrara was the main supplier of the finest white marble in Europe, and Elisa had both financial and artistic interests as ruler of Tuscany, she established an Académie des Beaux-Arts there to host the greatest sculptors and thus make Carrara an exporter of marble statues. She also recommended that Napoleon send his favorite sculptor, Lorenzo Bartolini, to direct the Académie.

In 1809, she commissioned Bartolini to create busts of her immediate family. After seeing his first portrait, Elisa ordered twelve lifesize busts of her own image, all of which were made by the sculptor or his workshop under his direct supervision (Marmatton, op. cit., p. 282). Examples exist in Versailles, the Neue Pinakothek Munich, Museo Napoleonica, Rome and the Musée Fesche, Corsica. With her headdress emblazoned with imperial symbols of bees, stars and palms, this bust, of which the present portrait is a version, became the official image of the new Grand Duchess of Tuscany.

Bartolini came from humble beginnings and emerged to become the most highly esteemed Italian sculptor of the generation after Canova. In 1797 he went to Paris and worked in the studio of Jacques-Louis David where he trained in the Neoclassical style. He was charged, by Napoleon’s powerful cultural minister, Vivant-Denon, to carve a bust of the Emperor for the column in the Place Vêndome , after which he was sent to Cararra . In addition to the busts of the Princess, Bartolini executed a nude statue of her daughter Napoléon Elisa with her dog (now in the The Cleveland Museum of Art) and a monument to the Grand Duchess of which the plaster model is preserved at the Accademia, Florence.

Bartolini remained as the quasi-official portrait sculptor to the Bonapartes until after the fall of Napoleon. He eventually settled in Florence and enjoyed wide-ranging patronage of foreign, largely British clientele. It was at this time that he was awarded commissions by the Russian-born count Anatoly Nicolayevich Demidoff (1812-1870), Tsar Alexander I's ambassador to the Grand Duchy of Tuscany and one of Bartolini’s greatest patrons.

Bartolini was certainly influenced by Canova’s works in Italy and France during his career but he created his own approach to the elegance and purity of Neoclassicism. His portraits of the Bonaparte dynasty induced other aristocratic and wealthy patrons to imagine themselves in similar compositions, which translated into important commissions throughout the latter part of his career.

In Sweden in 1808-1810 a number of dramatic events led to the removal of King Charles XIII from the throne and the subsequent election of Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, Prince of Ponte Corvo, one of Napoleon’s high-ranking military commanders. In Paris, the Emperor’s relationship with his minister of police, Joseph Fouché (1759-1820), 1st Duke d’Otrante was strained. Fouché continued to forestall Napoleon’s efforts to affect peace between France and Great Britain. In 1810, the minister was dismissed from office but he still received the governorship of the Rome département from Napoleon. Fouché continued to interfere with Napoleon's work and when he learned after his arrival in Florence that the Emperor was enraged, he prepared to sail to the United States. Fouché, compelled by the weather and sea-sickness, returned to port and found a mediator in Elisa Bonaparte who arranged for him to settle in Aix-en-Provence. Paul Athanase Fouché d'Otrante, 2nd Duc d'Otrante (1801–1886), succeeded to his father's titles. He later moved to Sweden, where he married twice and had children. Traugott family tradition has revealed that the present bust may have travelled to Sweden with the Duke, where it remained until present day.