MANDEREN.- From the 15th of March to the 31st of August 2009, the Château de Malbrouck in Manderen is holding the exhibition “Splendours of the Empire: Napoléon and the Imperial Court”, presented by the Moselle Departmental Council in partnership with the Napoléon Foundation and with the support of eighteen museums, cultural institutions and several private collections.

At the crossroads of three countries - France, Germany and Luxembourg - the Château de Malbrouck brings together close to three hundred works of art, historical items, written documents and other original pieces of utmost importance that recall the life of Napoléon through the “great moments” of his existence, as seen by artists.

So as to create an vast picture of Napoleonic society, the exhibition presents- stroke by stroke- the Court and the imperial family, the military campaigns, the institutional reforms and even the traces left by the Emperor on the left bank of the Rhine in the Lorraine region

Napoléon, Views on Destiny
From Ajaccio to Sainte-Hélène, the fate of Napoléon Bonaparte is found summed up and symbolised in masterpieces such as David’s Portrait of the Emperor Wearing a Crown (1807) or the preliminary sketches for the major painting Coronation, by the same artist. Alongside these centrepieces, other facets such as Napoléon’s throne from the Legislative Council and the hat the Emperor wore at Waterloo mark the road that led the Empire from its glory to its demise.

The “Empire” Style, The Height of Decorative Arts
Often used as a means of celebrating power, painting and sculpture contribute towards the “symbolic legitimisation of the sovereign”. However, the arts also appear as a manifestation of a genuine “art of living” elevated to a very high degree of perfection. In sometimes amazing ways, the work of cabinet-makers, goldsmiths and bronze workers or the surprising creations of watchmakers and porcelain manufactories attest to the quality of the luxury craftsmanship that the Emperor and his Court generously patronised.

The Imperial Court and Family
The imperial family played a major role in supporting the arts, especially Empress Josephine, whose culture and refined tastes appeared to be powerful stimuli. Moreover, the very status of those close to the Emperor- from Napoléon’s mother to his siblings- also influenced artists and craftsmen through the works commissioned by them and the portraits painted of them, of which a sizable selection are on exhibit at the Château de Malbrouck Castle.

Napoléon’s Military Campaigns
Among the artistic productions at this time, there are some get their inspiration indirectly from military campaigns, as can be attested by the style “Back from Egypt”. In Alexandria or in front of the Sphinx, the painters depict forever famous scenes directly or after the fact. Battles which bloodily punctuated the Emperor’s triumphal march throughout Europe, before he was forced to withdraw and accept his final defeats. The engravings after Carle Vernet produced around 1860 “immortalise” no fewer than fifty-two Napoleonic battles, from Millesimo to Waterloo.

Napoléon, Founder of Modern France
Was the terrible toll of the wars led by imperial France compensated for institutionally by the “birth of modern France”? In any case, the legacy of the Napoleonic period remains very much alive in countless sectors. Just mention the Civil Code, high schools, A-levels, as well as the administrative organisation of the territory divided into departments and the establishment- under the Consulate and the Empire- of the Council of State, the Court of Auditors, the Industrial Tribunal and many other innovations still elicited in objects and historical documents.

Napoléon, The Lorraine Region and the Left Bank of the Rhine
If applied to all of France, and in particular the four departments of the Lorraine region today, the institutional blueprint implemented at the time also affected the annexed territories which make up the present-day partners of the “Greater Saar-Lor-Lux Region”: the Saar and the Lorraine regions, and Luxembourg, not to mention the regions of Rhine-Palatinate and French-speaking Belgium. A shared destiny of which history and museums retain abundant traces.