trudon Napoleon Bust Candle | Noir

The Consulate, Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) knew that spreading his portrait was necessary to impose himself on the French people. He would be the main builder of his own legend. All media were used, from sculpture to snuffboxes and fans. The multitude of objects bearing the Emperor's effigy or representing imperial symbols constituted an extraordinary means of spreading the Napoleonic legend. But with the Restoration, the Bonapartists had to engage in an underground battle, multiplying seditious objects. The Emperor's death in 1821, making him less dangerous in the eyes of royalists, led to a resurgence in the production of images of the hero and his main military feats. The Second Empire (1852) would formalize the imperial legend through commissions for sculptures in public squares or paintings for museums. While the Second Empire took on official propaganda, the regime's fall in 1870 put Napoleon's image to rest for twenty years. It was not until the awakening of national sentiment in the 1890s that the image of the hero, which he had never ceased to be, reappeared.