Minerva Protecting the Young King of Rome

Joseph-Antoine Romagnési

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This is the original plaster for a relief intended to celebrate the birth of Napoleon I's son, Napoleon II, or François-Charles-Joseph, in 1811, who was endowed by his father with the title King of Rome in symbolic confirmation of the imperial dynasty. The work was exhibited at the Salon of 1812. Its formal aspects were possibly inspired by Roman reliefs in the Palazzo Spada, Rome. A smaller plaster relief depicting the King of Rome with the she-wolf who suckled Romulus and Remus also exists. Due to the Bourbon Restoration of 1814, the marble version was never completed; the marble block was instead used for Romagnési's variant composition of 1817, Minerva Protecting France.

European Sculpture and Decorative Arts

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The fifty thousand objects in the Museum's comprehensive and historically important collection of European sculpture and decorative arts reflect the development of a number of art forms in Western European countries from the early fifteenth through the early twentieth century. The holdings include sculpture in many sizes and media, woodwork and furniture, ceramics and glass, metalwork and jewelry, horological and mathematical instruments, and tapestries and textiles. Ceramics made in Asia for export to European markets and sculpture and decorative arts produced in Latin America during this period are also included among these works.

Metropolitan Museum of Art