An Allegory of Empress Josephine as Patroness of the Gardens at Malmaison

An Allegory of Empress Josephine as Patroness of the Gardens at Malmaison

baron François Gérard

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

In this watercolor, Gérard pays homage to Napoleon’s first wife, Josephine, as a patron of horticulture. He shows the goddess Flora adorning a bust of the empress with a garland of flowers. The background features the great glasshouse on the grounds of Malmaison, constructed to protect Josephine’s collection of exotic plants and serve as a space for entertaining guests. Appointed premier peintre (first painter) to the Empress Josephine in 1806, Gérard enjoyed success along with a reputation as a portrait painter for the Bonaparte family and their entourage that surpassed even that of his teacher Jacques Louis David.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

An Allegory of Empress Josephine as Patroness of the Gardens at MalmaisonAn Allegory of Empress Josephine as Patroness of the Gardens at MalmaisonAn Allegory of Empress Josephine as Patroness of the Gardens at MalmaisonAn Allegory of Empress Josephine as Patroness of the Gardens at MalmaisonAn Allegory of Empress Josephine as Patroness of the Gardens at Malmaison

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.