A Sèvres biscuit porcelain bust of Napoleon I, circa 1812

This bust of Napoleon was created at Sèvres in 1811 and represents the ability of the manufactory to quickly and successfully respond to the changing personal circumstances and diplomatic agenda of its most important patron. It was modelled after a full-length statue of Napoléon Premier en législateur, executed in white marble by the sculptor Denis-Antoine Chaudet (1763-1810), in 1804, for the Hall of the Corps législatif in Paris, from where it was removed in 1815 to be offered by Louis XVIII to Frederick William III, King of Prussia. A white marble example of the model, after Chaudet, executed in the Carrara workshops under the direction of Bartolini, is preserved at the château de Compiègne (inventory no. C.31.D.9).

Chaudet had already provided Alexandre Brongniart, director of the factory, with a bust portrait of the Emperor in 1804, modelled in the form of an ancient herm, titled on the squared base with the inscription ‘Napoléon’ and produced from 1805, in two sizes. This earlier bust served as an official portrait throughout most of the Empire and the Sèvres biscuit porcelain versions were distributed to offices around the kingdom and included in numerous diplomatic and official gifts. The present example, of the second size, imperialized and more ‘Roman’, belongs to the second type created by Chaudet. In the article by Marcel Gastineau (1934) from the Bulletin de la Société de l’Histoire de l’Art Français, 1934, first Issue, pp. 159-168, it is noted that a new bust of Napoleon was being worked on in the factory workshops in August 1810, probably under the direction of Alexandre Brongniart père. Based on Chaudet’s original, the new model was to differ from the previous portrait with the addition of shoulders, a laurel crown and a draped mantle. By 1811, the first examples were in production, initially in the smaller second size, in April 1811, and in the larger ‘grandeur naturelle’ by June 1811. The factory documents provide testimony by Brongniart himself that this model was intended as a balanced pendant with the bust portrait of Empress Marie-Louise, which was in production by December 1810 and had been commissioned by Alexandre Brongniart from Bosio: 'a plaster bust of Her Imperial Majesty, Empress [...] of dimensions larger than life and arranged in such a way as to form a pendant with the bust of the Emperor made by Chaudet'.

The introduction of this imposing new model, so closely aligned stylistically with Roman portrait bust of Caesars, also reflects Napoleon’s continued use of Sèvres porcelain as a strategic medium for dynastic propaganda, to promote the imperial image of conqueror, both at home and abroad, and to remind foreign sovereigns, to whom the bust might be offered as a gift, of his ever-increasing dominance in Europe.

The present example is of the smaller, second size, which was probably intended for mounting onto a marble base with the Emperor’s initial in gilt-bronze affixed to the front. In his 1934 article Gastineau mentions that nineteen examples of the second size are recorded in the factory archives between 1811 and the fall of the Empire. However, the rarity of this model suggests that most of these were destroyed in 1814, when Napoleon was forced to abdicate and begin his first, brief, exile on the island of Elba. Only six examples of the larger first size left the Sèvres workshops between 1811 and 1814, probably due to difficulties in firing such a large scale pieces. An 1811 example of the first size is now in the Louvre Museum, Paris (inventory number OA 10420).