Diadem och identitet : En studie kring identiteter i kejsarinnan Josephines pärl- och kamédiadem

Sammanfattning: This paper, on the identities shown in one of the cameos in Empress Josephine’s pearl and cameo diadem, has first of all focused on the mythological characters, and thereafter raised the question if these are to be seen as an allegory for people from the time. The process of identi-fication has followed the three levels in Panofsky’s method for analysing art, where the first and second levels consist of already known material from the Bernadotte Library, Royal Palace in Stockholm and the jeweller house of Chaumet (former Nitot et Fils) in Paris.                      To decipher both the mythological individuals and the possible allegories, that is the third level, the iconology itself, the thoughts and methods of  Göran Hermerén on the rise and fall of allegories along with Leora Auslander’s solutions using visuals comparisons, when no written material is available, have provided the academic framework for the study.                                When comparing the cameo with pieces of art from the time, the subject fits the description of the Roman mythology’s love goddess Venus and her son Cupid, the lovechild fathered by Mars. Moving on to allegories, well-known material shows that Emperor Napoleon was keen to be portrayed as the god of war Mars and Empress Josephine as Venus.  A portrait of special interest to the study, a rather private painting by Parent from 1807, which is probably still unknown to most people, shows how Josephine is depicted with a recently deceased grandchild, a young boy how was also the nephew of Napoleon’s, a close relative to them both, and in the line of  succession to the throne, while Napoleon still was Emperor. This picture has an expression which is close to the one of Venus and Cupid, and it is also made to look like a cameo. These portraits were known at the time when Napoleon gave the diadem to Josephine in 1809.                                                       Among portraits from the Napoleonic era, there has earlier only been one known painting, even if in two examples, where the diadem is shown. It is a miniature of Empress Josephine, a work from her final period at Malmaison, 1814. However, another miniature picturing the daughter Hortense in the very same piece of jewellery, from 1812, has now become known. In both these examples, the depicted cameo has a hight measuring only millimetres, why a discussion on the execution and the rendering has to be done with restraint. But in the daughter´s portrait there is a certain attempt to show the outlines of the central cameo that differs from the later painting of the Empress. This may be an indication of how much more important it was for the daughter to relay the picture of her mother and the memory of her son, in 1812, than it was for Josephine in 1814, after the divorce, probably after the fall of Napoleon too, when she was no longer his Venus, and there was no longer a throne for any of her grandsons to inherit.         Therefore, in short, the chosen methods give the answer that the mythology depicted is a scene of Venus and her son Cupid, and the allegorical interpretation of Venus is the Empress herself. The child in shape of Cupid here, may well be read as one of her daughter’s sons, at the time a much longed-for heir to the throne of Napoleon I.