Empress Eugénie and the Arts: Politics and Visual Culture in the Nineteenth Century by Alison McQueen (review)

book-length project to include archival and other academic references. Maza’s extensive bibliographical notes underscore her meticulous and exhaustive research (she spent a year in Paris researching in the Bibliothèque des littératures policières, the Bibliothèque de l’Ordre des Avocats, and the Archives de la Ville de Paris). The breadth of Maza’s work, which covers historical, sociological, psychological, and literary aspects of Interwar Parisian life, make this book valuable not only to historians, but also to sociologists, literary and women’s studies scholars, and the general reader looking for an enthralling murder mystery. East Carolina University Marylaura Papalas MCQUEEN, ALISON. Empress Eugénie and the Arts: Politics and Visual Culture in the Nineteenth Century. Farnham: Ashgate, 2011. ISBN 978-1-4094-0585-6. Pp. 368. $124.95. Alison McQueen’s unique approach to Empress Eugénie’s patronage of the visual arts draws heavily on primary sources, copious archival materials, to reassess the intriguing consort of Napoléon III, a Spaniard by birth and a French national by marriage. In a beautifully illustrated volume, McQueen shows how Eugénie constructs a public persona in conformity with her husband’s perceptions of an empress as pious, charitable, and concerned with social issues. As Napoléon III would have the empress define the feminine as the “ornament of the throne,” early portraits of Eugénie accentuate her beauty, sensuality, and grace. In time, by imperial decree, the empress is given jurisdiction over the charitable institutions of France, the Ministry of the Interior, and is granted admittance to the emperor’s Privy Council. McQueen collects numerous examples to attest how Eugénie is depicted in artworks as a generous benefactor to French institutions, a gracious sponsor of social programs, and a patroness of the arts. McQueen argues that Eugénie consciously honed a public persona both as a devotee of the arts, supportive of French and international artists alike, and as an informed art collector, one who chose the occasions of the yearly Salons and even public auctions to acquire art. The empress regularly loaned portions of her collection to Salons and Universal Expositions, and in 1867 organized exhibitions at Malmaison and the Trianon at Versailles. McQueen aptly chooses a later portrait of the empress by Winterhalter to grace her book’s cover, a portrait that depicts a mature and empowered Eugénie, an international public figure. However, Eugénie’s efforts to craft a public persona that marked Napoleon III’s reign ended with his defeat at Sedan in 1870. Whatever energies Eugénie expended to reach out to other nations in projects to promote the visual arts and bring glory to France, projects that included several successful ventures—the musée chinois at Fontainebleau, the gift of a sculpture received from a group of Milanese women, a monument of Christopher Columbus given to Colombia, and a sculpted ship presented by Eugénie to De Lesseps upon the opening of the Suez Canal—these triumphs could not ward off the abrupt loss of her prestige. McQueen describes with evident empathy for the empress how caricature, censured under the reign of Napoléon III, swiftly brought about the decimation of Eugénie’s imperial identity in the days following the defeat of Napoléon III’s army. Later, as Napoléon III’s widow living in exile in England, Eugénie regularly 202 FRENCH REVIEW 86.1 received Bonapartists and international figures into her home, a veritable treasure trove, where she lived surrounded by artworks salvaged from her collection, memories of Napoléon I, Napoléon III, and her son, the prince imperial. McQueen’s narrative places particular emphasis on Eugenie’s firm resolve to design a suitable site of memory to the glory of Napoléon III, Saint Michael’s Abbey in England. The author’s style conveys affection for an empress obliged to work with, politicize with, and socialize with men who embraced nineteenth-century gendered attitudes about her role. To counter their opinion, Eugénie sought out opportunities to surround herself with a powerful female attendance. The presence of her dames d’honneur at court and the oval portraits of aristocratic female sitters in...