Views of Malmaison The Château and the Park Malmaison anglais

Résumé du livre

By one of those curious paradoxes of history, it was on a spot dubbed literally 'bad place' - a reminder of Viking raids - that there rose, in the early years of the nineteenth century, a residence that was to become the most elegant and influential throughout Europe: Malmaison.

This magical transformation was due to one woman, Joséphine de Beauharnais, wife of the young Napoléon Bonaparte. Having bought the house in April 1799, she summoned the most talented neo-classical architects of the day, Percier and Fontaine and filled great hothouses with her botanical collection. Thus she realized a dream that fascinated all artists of the time: the creation of a residence that in its style was worthy of antiquity, but which in its landscaping and domestic arrangements represented the height of modernity.

This was the enchanted universe tailored to the tastes of a woman of passionate enthusiasm - that the greatest contemporary draughtsmen, from Garnerey to Nicolle, sought to immortalize. Collected together in one volume for the first time, these works - over fifty watercolours, oil paintings and drawings of exceptional quality - offer a rare glimpse into the world of Malmaison in its exquisite heyday.