Collection: the bust of Napoleon I returns to the Fondation Napoléon after the loan to the CMN for the Arc de Triomphe de l’Étoile (December 2018 to January 2019)

The bust of Napoleon I (after Chaudet, inv. 94), loaned by the Fondation Napoléon to the Centre des Monuments Nationaux (CMN), is back in the Foundation’s collection. From 10 December 2018 it was exhibited at the Arc de Triomphe de l’Étoile during the repair of another copy of the bust held there which had been damaged by demonstrators on 1 December 2018. The bust was returned to the Fondation Collection on 7 January 2020.

This bust is the most widely distributed of the official effigies of Emperor Napoleon I. Antoine-Denis Chaudet received the commission for a statue of Napoleon Legislator for the Legislative Corps. It was inaugurated on 14 January 1805 but stolen by the Prussians in 1815. From this statue, the sculptor made a bust of Napoleon as an antique Herm from June-July 1804. A plaster cast was sent to Carrara and many copies were executed in marble from 1807.

Publication 8 January 2020