The Imperial Impresario

To give political legitimacy to his Empire, in just fifteen years Emperor Napoléon I created an enduring image of Napoléonic France as the contemporary equivalent of Imperial Rome. He did this by the deft use of iconography and what today would be called ‘branding’, which he applied to every aspect of his family, the government, the military, the monuments to his achievements, his palaces and their furnishings. The tangible remains of this grand, imperial ‘theatre’ has excited royal and other collectors ever since. The Imperial Impresario take a wholly new look at Napoléon and the First Empire by interpreting the era in theatrical terms: the players, the sets, the props, the costumes, the tours and the script, much of which has survived. The fully illustrated book includes a wide range of Napoléonica in royal, national, regimental and private collections, as well as lost treasures such as the Emperor’s campaign carriage, captured in the immediate aftermath of Waterloo and destroyed in a fire at Madame Tussaud’s in 1925. For readers coming to the subject for the first time, The Imperial Impresario is a fascinating and informative introduction to the Napoléonic era; for those already steeped in the period, it is an invaluable companion to existing books about Napoléon and his Empire.