Ci-devant Occupations; or, Madame Talian and the Empress Josephine Dancing Naked before Barrass in the Winter of 1797. - A Fact!

Ci-devant Occupations; or, Madame Talian and the Empress Josephine Dancing Naked before Barrass in the Winter of 1797. - A Fact!

James Gillray

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Gillray's genius for political savagery is evident in this satire, which purports to show Napoleon's first meeting with Josephine. According to slanderous gossip, the young general, who peeks through the curtains at the right, first laid eyes on his future wife as she danced naked for the comte de Barras. The latter was a leading politician who had made Josephine his mistress but then had grown tired of her. According to the text below the image, Barras offered Napoleon the leadership of an Egyptian campaign if he would take the lady as well. The artist's long-standing anti-French bias was sparked, in this instance, by the recent coronation of the imperial couple in a ceremony whose excesses were widely mocked in Britain.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Ci-devant Occupations; or, Madame Talian and the Empress Josephine Dancing Naked before Barrass in the Winter of 1797. - A Fact!Ci-devant Occupations; or, Madame Talian and the Empress Josephine Dancing Naked before Barrass in the Winter of 1797. - A Fact!Ci-devant Occupations; or, Madame Talian and the Empress Josephine Dancing Naked before Barrass in the Winter of 1797. - A Fact!Ci-devant Occupations; or, Madame Talian and the Empress Josephine Dancing Naked before Barrass in the Winter of 1797. - A Fact!Ci-devant Occupations; or, Madame Talian and the Empress Josephine Dancing Naked before Barrass in the Winter of 1797. - A Fact!

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.