François Pascal Simon Gérard, called Baron Gérard

Collection Ch. Haviland;

His sale after death, M^e Lair-Dubreuil, Paris, Hôtel Drouot, 14-15 December 1922, lot 51 (as François Gérard);

Where acquired by M. Schwob d'Hericourt;

Anonymous sale, Drouot-Richelieu, Paris, Hôtel Drouot, 12 December 2001, lot 53 (as Marie-Eléonore Godefroy);

Anonymous sale, Osenat, Fontainebleau, 9 December 2018, lot 167 (as François Gérard and Studio).

P.-J. Chalençon, Napoléon. La collection, Paris 2019, p. 66 (as François Gérard).

This charming painting shows Queen Hortense with her two sons, Napoléon-Charles (1802–1807) wearing the white costume of a Prince of France, and Napoléon-Louis (1804–1831).

This was without doubt a preparatory sketch for a large portrait that was abandoned after the death of the elder child on 5 May 1807. Gérard never returned to the subject, but it is interesting to note that at the 1812 Salon, Marie-Eléonore Godefroid, a pupil and collaborator of Gérard, who was herself recognized for her talent as an artist, exhibited a ‘Portrait de S. M. La reine Hortense avec les princes ses enfants’, whose location is now unknown. Did she use the composition sketched by Gérard? In Alain Latreille’s view it is probable, since Godefroid was often inspired by her master’s works. However, it is not out of the question that Godefroid’s work was original and showed Queen Hortense with her younger sons, Napoléon-Louis and Louis-Napoléon (1808–1873), the future Emperor Napoleon III.

While no large official portrait by Gérard of Hortense with her two (or three) sons has been found, the artist did paint two portraits of her with just one of them, her eldest son Napoléon-Charles. One was given on long-term loan to the French State by Napoleon’s family, the other is in the Musée National du Château de Fontainebleau.

Hortense-Eugénie de Beauharnais (1783–1837) was the daughter of Vicomte Alexandre de Beauharnais and Marie-Joseph-Rose Tascher de la Pagerie (future wife of Napoleon and Empress of the French). On 4 January 1802, Hortense married Louis Bonaparte, one of Napoleon’s brothers, thus becoming sister-in-law to her father-in-law. She was Queen of Holland from 1806 to 1810, when the kingdom was annexed to the Empire. Her marriage to Louis gave her three sons but brought her no happiness. For several years, she conducted a relationship with the Comte de Flahaut, with whom she had an illegitimate son in 1811, the future Duc de Morny.