The pictures in the gallery at Versailles afford perhaps the best idea
of ornaments in the Empire style; since jewellery is more clearly
represented on French portraits than on any others of the time. Among
the most striking of such portraits are those of Marie Pauline, Princess
Borghese, by Lefèvre, of Caroline Buonaparte, Queen of Naples, by Madame
Vigée-Lebrun, and of Madame Mère, by Gérard. The first has a high comb
and bandeau, earrings, and girdle, all decorated with cameos, the second
a parure of pearls and cameos, and the third a head-ornament mounted
with a single large cameo. The coronation of Napoleon in 1804 furnished
the painter David with the subject of a picture unrivalled in its
kind--"Le Sacre de Napoleon I^e^r à Notre-Dame," which is exhibited
in the Louvre. This grandiose production, besides being a truly epic
rendering of a great historical event, serves as a valuable document in
the history of jewellery, in that it represents jewellery of the most
magnificent kind carried by Josephine, the princesses, and the ladies of
honour. The Empress is shown wearing comb and diadem of precious stones,
brilliant earrings, and a bracelet on the wrist formed of two rows of
jewels united with a cameo. Her suite have, besides, necklaces and
girdles mounted in several cases with cameos. Josephine herself
possessed a perfect passion for engraved gems, and she actually induced
Napoleon to have a number of antique cameos and intaglios removed from
the gem collection in the Royal Library and made up into a complete
parure of jewellery for her own use.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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