Beautiful bust portrait of Napoleon, seen in profile on the left, painted in cameo style, on a red agate background; he is represented in the antique style, as Caesar wearing a laurel wreath.

We will observe the extreme precision of the features of the silhouette whose style is close to the physionotraces then in vogue under the Directory and the Consulate. But the particularity of our portrait lies above all in its representation in the form of a sardonyx cameo, perfectly imitating the different tones of the hard stone, whose trompe l'oeil relief is accentuated with great delicacy by the shadows. at the level of the bust and the reflections of light marked by fine white touches.

After the rediscovery of Herculaneum and numerous excavations in southern Italy, the taste for glyptics and antique jewelry was very successful in high society at the end of the 18th century. In France, this taste will particularly inspire fashion under the Directory, to the point of creating a real craze for small Etruscan-style objects, Roman life and decorations, Greek negligees, and this passion for jewelry. mounted as a cameo. This “anticomania” emerged thanks to the campaigns of Italy and Egypt, and thanks to the dissemination of scientific works with rich iconography, on mineralogy and archaeology.

Napoleon and Joséphine had a particular penchant for antique cameos, the technique of which would have a great influence in the decorative arts under the Empire. The “cameo genre”, this trompe l'oeil painting imitating sardonyx, agate, or sardonix, became a specialty of great virtuosity that only a small number of artists developed.

Charles de Chatillon, secretary and artist of Lucien Bonaparte

Our portrait here is the work of Charles de Chatillon (1777-1844), one of the first miniaturists to have inaugurated the fashion for portraits in imitation of the antique cameo, with Parant, Degault and Coupin de La Couperie. He exhibited at salons from 1795, presenting several suites of miniature portraits, including some large formats, showing his talents with "antique-themed cameos" from 1801. It was at this time that he became Lucien's secretary Bonaparte whom he would subsequently follow in his exile in Italy and England. The Duchess of Abrantès speaks in her Memoirs of "the Count of Chatillon, one of her friends, whom the misfortunes of the Revolution had thrown into the career of the arts, who had come out of it very gloriously and that the exile of Lucien had not stopped to follow him to Italy. He lived with him and directed the administration of fine arts from within” [Duchess of Abrantès, Memoirs, ed. 1893, volume VII, p.110]. In his unpublished Memoirs, Lucien attests to the very close ties he formed with “little Chatillon – a young miniature painter – although a man of quality – double merit in having talent and who has always remained attached to me. »

Charles de Chatillon produced numerous drawings and portraits of Lucien's family, and took advantage of his privileged links to rub shoulders with artists attached to the Bonapartes, such as Wicar, Dupré, Fabre or better still, Ingres and Girodet whom the artist copied on several occasions . Charles de Chatillon was also responsible for drawing the illustrations of Charlemagne or the Church Delivered, an epic poem composed by Lucien Bonaparte and published in 1814. The artist published his memoirs in 1842 under the title Fifteen years of exile in the Roman States during the proscription of Lucien Bonaparte, source of numerous anecdotes concerning the family life of Lucien and Alexandrine de Bleschamp.

Bibliography

- Nathalie Lemoine-Bouchard. Miniature painters. 1650-1850. Paris, Les Editions de l’Amateur, 2008. Art. Charles de Chatillon, pp.156-157.

-     Neil Jeffares. Dictionary of pastellists before 1800. Art. Charles de Chatillon.

- Coll. M.-T. Caracciolo by I. Mayer-Michalon. Lucien Bonaparte. 1775-1840. A free man. Exhibition catalogue, Ajaccio, Palais Fesch, 2010.