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5 - Empress Eugénie: Picturesque Patrimony at the Universal Exposition of 1867

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 November 2024

Susan Taylor-Leduc
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Summary

Abstract

At the Universal Exposition of 1867, Empress Eugénie sponsored two temporary exhibitions at the Petit Trianon and Malmaison dedicated to the memory of Marie-Antoinette and Joséphine, respectively. Scholarship dedicated to Eugénie's restoration projects has primarily focused on the decorative interiors and eclipsed any discussion of the adjoining gardens. This chapter argues that Eugénie aligns herself with her illustrious predecessors, hoping to restore their reputations in this arena. Inspired by her mentor and founder of the commission to preserve historic monuments, Prosper Merimee, she inaugurated a new concept of living patrimony. Eugénie's patronage was coincident with Napoleon III's public park movement, suggesting her restorations claimed the historic picturesque as a space of female agency.

Keywords: Universal Exposition 1867, Malmaison, Petit Trianon, Empress Eugénie, public parks

On February 22, 1867, less than three months before the official opening of the Universal Exposition, Le Moniteur Universel published the following announcement:

The numerous visitors who will be visiting the Universal Exposition would certainly not leave Paris without having visited our imperial palaces. To give even more interest to these visits, the empress had the happy idea to reunite at the chateaux of Malmaison and at the Petit Trianon, the furniture, paintings and diverse objects related to each palace with authentic souvenirs from each of these historic homes.

The announcement was followed by a call to “amateurs and collectors” wanting to contribute to the success of this endeavor to contact the commissioners in charge, under the direction of General Comte Louis Joseph Napoléon Lepic (1810–1875), aide de camp for the emperor and director of the imperial palaces, and Mathurin-Francois Adolphe de Lescure (1833–1892), a historian who served in the finance ministry. The time frame to realize Eugénie's temporary exhibition was complicated: how to assemble, catalogue, and display the objects was a curatorial nightmare, even if the commissioners had the resources of the imperial court at their disposition. By declaring her “happy idea” to restore Marie-Antoinette and Joséphine's favorite residences and their gardens to coincide with the opening of the Universal Exposition, Eugénie established herself as a garden patron who deployed picturesque design to advocate for her own political, personal, and cultural agency.

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Marie-Antoinette's Legacy
The Politics of French Garden Patronage and Picturesque Design, 1775-1867
 , pp. 269 - 304
Publisher: Amsterdam University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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