A French Empire 'Napoléonide' Gilt Bronze Bust of Jérôme Bonaparte by Martin-Guillaume Biennais, Circa 1810

Comparative Literature:

Guy Ledoux-Lebard, 'La série des petits bustes en bronze des napoléonides par l'orfèvre Biennais,' Bulletin de la Société d'Histoire de l'Art Français 1990 (année 1989), p.130-142

One of the most important gold- and silversmiths working in Paris in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, Martin-Guillaume Biennais (1764-1843) worked closely with the Napoleonic court on official commissions, notably providing the regalia for Napoleon's coronation as Emperor in December 1804. Following Napoleon's second marriage with Marie-Louise of Austria on 1 April 1810, Biennais began producing small chased and gilded bust portraits of Napoleon and members of his family, likely intended as diplomatic gifts as part of the Imperial court's extensive programme of using artistic and iconographic propaganda to add legitimacy to the Bonaparte dynasty.

Twenty-eight surviving examples from this series, referred to as Napoléonides, have been recorded, along with several versions made in was of slightly larger size destined as casting moulds. The offered lot depicts Jérôme, the youngest of Napoleon's four brothers and three sisters, in uniform on a square pedestal mounted with the monogram JN for Jérôme-Napoléon under a crown. Like many youngest siblings, Jérôme (1784-1860) had a somewhat agitated youth, joining the French navy and sailing to the West Indies, from where he fled to the United States and settled temporarily in Baltimore, where in 1803 at the age of nineteen he married a merchant's daughter, Elizabeth Patterson, against the wishes of his older brother. Despite Elizabeth bearing him a son, the marriage was annulled upon Jérôme's return to Paris, and in 1807 he married Princess Katharina of Württemberg as part of Napoleon's strategy to create marriage alliances between his family and the ruling dynasties of the territories he conquered. Jérôme was made King of Westphalia from 1807-1813, ruling over a confederation of occupied German principalities, and after the definitive fall of the Empire in 1815 the couple lived in exile in Trieste and Switzerland until Katharina's death in 1835. Jérôme then moved to Italy and wed for a third time to Giustina Pecori-Suarez, widow of an Italian marquess, and returned to France during the reign of his nephew Napoleon III.

Another version of this bust of Jérôme on a circular rather than square pedestal was sold Osenat Fontainebleau, 6 May 2021, lot 254 (EUR 22,000), and along with Biennais busts of his sisters Pauline and Caroline also sold at Osenat Fontainebleau, 20 November 2016, lots 446 (EUR 32,500) and 447 (31,250), was acquired by the the Musée Napoléon I^er at the Château de Fontainebleau. A bust of Napoleon was recently sold at Osenat Fontainebleau, 7 July 2024, lot 222 (EUR 55,900). Finally, a bust of Napoleon's third brother Louis, King of Holland, was sold Christie's London, 20 May 2014, lot 194 (GBP 28,750).