Robert Lefèvre

 Portrait of Two Elegantly Dressed Ladies

  

Portrait of Napoleon I

Portrait of Princess M.F. Baryatinskaya with Her Daughter (1817)

Robert Lefèvre: Portrait of Princess M.F. Baryatinskaya with Her Daughter

Portrait of Madame Bessières (ca. 1814)

Robert Lefèvre: Portrait of Madame Bessières, Wife of Marshal Jean-Baptiste Bessières

The lady's husband, Marshal Bessières, saw a lot of action during the Napoleonic Wars.

Napoleon Bonaparte (1812)

Robert Lefèvre: Napoleon Bonaparte

There's no getting away from this guy, is there?

Napoleon in Coronation Robes (1811)

Robert Lefèvre: Portrait of Napoleon in Coronation Robes

Portrait of Joséph Bonaparte (ca. 1811)

Robert Lefèvre: Portrait of Joséph Bonaparte

Another one of those Bonaparte boys...

A Lady in Court Costume

Robert Lefèvre: A Lady in Court Costume

Pauline Duchambge

Robert Lefèvre: Pauline Duchambge

The Empress Josephine (1806)

Robert Lefèvre: The Empress Josephine

Pauline Bonaparte, Princess Borghese (1806)

Robert Lefèvre: Pauline Bonaparte, Princess Borghese

Pauline Bonaparte was Napoleon's younger sister. About.com has this to say about her:

Pauline was a famous beauty before even her sixteenth birthday, attracting a legion of admirers and causing her mother and brothers concern. The young Paoletta initially wanted to marry Stanislas Fréron, but her family disagreed; he may have been in Napoleon's employ, but he was also a forty year old syphilitic with a legendary reputation for philandering. Another admirer, Colonel Victor Emmanuel Leclerc, became Pauline's first husband on June 14th 1797 at Napoleon's insistence: he had found them making love in a corner of Milan's Mombello Palace a few weeks before. Nevertheless, marriage proved little impediment to the young Pauline, whose string of lovers and unrestrained promiscuity only added to the allure of her famed looks. Many women throughout history have been slandered by their enemies in such a way, but Pauline Bonaparte was one of the few whose reputation was deserved.

Pauline wasn't simply famous for her physical appetites, but also for her broader love of sensual and material pursuits: she brought masses of clothes, attended party after party and prompted vast amounts of gossip from France's upper classes. She acted in an impulsive and often childlike way, and it's not unfair to say she often seemed to inhabit a dreamlike world of her own. In contrast to her mother, Pauline exhibited little in the way of maternal instinct: when her only child by Leclerc - Dermide, born in 1798 - died aged 8, she was nowhere near his deathbed. The incident is notable because Napoleon worked to obscure the events, instead presenting Pauline in a more flattering, or at least imperial, light. Indeed, Napoleon produced plenty of propaganda aimed at defending her.

However, Pauline wasn't a political climber or a power-hungry schemer like others who surrounded Napoleon and, although she still received considerable gifts from him, the Emperor treated Pauline less lavishly than other siblings. Quite how much this has to do with her treatment of the Duchy of Guantalla, which Napoleon gifted to Pauline and she promptly sold to Parma for six million francs, is unclear; what's certain, is that this latter Bonaparte wasn't interested in ruling.

Yelizaveta Demidova (ca.1805)

Robert Lefèvre: Yelizaveta Demidova

Robert Lefèvre (1755-1830) was a prominent painter of portraits and history paintings. The subject of this portrait, Yelizaveta Demidova, was a Russian aristocrat who, with her husband (a diplomat), lived in Paris and were strong supporters of Napoleon, until he went to war with the Russians. They fled to Italy, then returned to Russia after Napoleon's defeat there in 1812. The couple split after the birth of their child and Yelizaveta returned to Paris to live out the brief remainder of her days (she died in 1818).