FROM ROSE OF MARTINIQUE To The Empress Josephine: A visual metamorphosis with Sylvia Sagona

When not on the battlefield fighting the combined might of Europe, Napoleon struggled at home to present a positive public image of the manipulative, often scandalous and self-serving behaviour of his fashionable wife, Josephine de Beauharnais. His solution was to harness her style and export it to the courts of Europe. The portraits commissioned to sell the image, from languid chatelaine to imposing Empress, show the tensions in their relationship.

Sylvia Sagona is an internationally recognised specialist on 19th century French society. She retired from the French Department at the University of Melbourne to work on historical documentaries for French and Australian television and is currently researching a book on Parisian women in the 19th century and a French documentary on the history of the restaurant in Paris.

Jacques-Louis David (1748 –1825), The Coronation of Napoleon [detail], 1805, collection of the Musée du Louvre, Paris