About this lot

Description

the oval painting depicting Eugénie as a young woman with a blue ribband in her auburn hair, pale grey blue eyes, a three row pearl necklace, and lace fichu at her nape, in a glazed frame with pierced border of round faceted pastes and beaded edging; verso with a glazed panel over dark brown felt, and applied monogram of a crown surmounting a capital E entwined with another reversed; later hinged bale, tapered with raised beaded edges; length with bale 5.6cm, length of portrait 3.2cm; unmarked, surround tested as 9ct gold, settings tested as silver and bale tested as 18ct gold, presented in a period oval leather case

Footnote: Provenance: A wedding present to the vendor's great grandmother by her great great grandfather, Sir John Baker (1828-1909), MP for Portsmouth, Hampshire. Doña María Eugenia Ignacia Agustina de Palafox y Kirkpatrick, 16th Countess of Teba, 15th Marchioness of Ardales, known as Eugénie de Montijo, was born in Spain in 1826, but spent her later childhood in Paris, returning to Spain in her early teens. She had some formal education in France, but also English governesses and briefly attended school in Bristol (where she was teased for her red hair). Her principal interests were in various sports and politics. She met Charles-Louis Napoléon Bonaparte (nephew of Napoleon I) in Paris when he was the first President of France after the revolution of 1848. By the time of their wedding in 1853, he had been made Emperor as Napoleon III; thus she became Empress. During this period France underwent considerable social and economic reform, with improved infrastructure and the re-designing of Paris under Baron Haussmann. Foreign policy was more mixed, with success in the Crimean War and expansion in Asia, but also with unfortunate meddling in Mexico and a disastrous facing of Bismarck in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. As Empress, Eugénie was politically active. She travelled to the Ottoman Empire and to Cairo to open the Suez canal, promoted female education and acted as Regent in her husband's absences - including the Franco-Prussian War when he was with his troops at the front. Napoleon was captured, deposed, and eventually joined Eugénie in exile in England (Farnborough, Hampshire), where she lived on after his death in 1873, socially vibrant but politically quiet, until her own death in 1920. There exist a great many portraits of the Empress Eugénie, both photographic and painted (including by Winterhalter, one of Queen Victoria's portraitists); they all show her unusually straight eyebrows and distinctive nose and eyes, and many show her wearing ropes of pearls (she was famous for her jewellery), just as in the present example.

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