Rare photograph of Princess Mathilda Bonaparte

Large Albumen photograph of Princesse Mathilda Bonaparte

320mm x  250mm

 Mathilde-Létizia Wilhelmine Bonaparte, princesse française, dite "la princesse Mathilde", est née à Trieste (Italie) le 27 mai 1820 et morte à Paris le 2 janvier 1904.

The sitter is shown in sharp profile (perdu, or "lost profile" pose), gazing off to the left with her chin resting on her hand — a classic tableau vivant convention drawing on classical sculpture and history-painting traditions, popular in the 1860s-1870s. The loose, draped white garment is costume rather than contemporary dress, reinforcing the allegorical or "characters and costumes" genre that was fashionable in elite and court photography of the period (Comtesse de Castiglione's sessions with Pierson are the best-known example, but this kind of work was widely imitated).

The daughter of King Jérôme of Westphalia (Napoleon I's youngest brother ⁾ and sister of Prince Napoleon, Princess Mathilde was first proposed to by her cousin Louis-Napoleon, the future Napoleon III; but this plan fell through, and she married a Russian prince, Anatole Demido, from whom she separated after four years. When Napoleon III began his career, she was involved and assisted him, acting somewhat as his housekeeper. After the Emperor's marriage, she lived outside the Tuileries Palace and led a free life in Paris or Saint-Gratien, according to her own tastes. Favorable to Russia and Italian unification, she represented, like her brother but with more restraint, the left wing of the Empire. In fact, her role was different; she protected writers, whatever their political views: Flaubert, Gautier, Sainte-Beuve, the Goncourt brothers, and Taine frequented her salons. She exhibited watercolors and paintings lacking originality. After September 4, 1870, and the fall of the Empire, she took refuge for a time in Belgium, but ended her long life in France. She freed herself from social conventions and abandoned her religious convictions, but remained ever attached to imperial glory, so much so that she could not accept the criticisms Taine leveled at Napoleon I. She will be remembered in history as a patron, most often an enlightened one, who helped Pasteur, protected Gounod, encouraged Nadar, commissioned a triumphal bust from Carpeaux, and gathered eminent writers around her. She alone would attest that the imperial regime was less indifferent to literature and art than is too often claimed.