Master Paintings Week, 4-10 July 2010

Joseph Bonaparte - newly discovered paintings from the Château de Mortefontaine

Among the exceptional works selected for the event, Ben Elwes Fine Art will be exhibiting two large landscape paintings with a fascinating rediscovered royal provenance. The pair was commissioned from the French neo-classical artist Hyacinthe Dunouy (1757-1843) by the brother of Napoleon, Joseph Bonaparte, King of Naples and later also King of Spain. Signed and dated 1806, they show views of Joseph’s estate at the Chậteau de Mortefontaine. One also includes a depiction of Joseph hunting.

On the downfall of Napoloeon in 1814, Joseph was forced to abdicate the Spanish throne. He subsequently moved to Philadelphia, taking much of his important art collection. His new home at Point Breeze, in New Jersey, became the centre of a Bonapartist personality cult, which out lived Joseph, who died July 28 1844 in Florence, but was continued with his much-feted daughter Zénaïde and her husband and cousin, Charles-Lucien Bonaparte.

The Point Breeze collection, much of which remains untraced, was dispersed in the 1840s. The newly-discovered provenance and topography of the pair by Dunouy is therefore of great trans-Atlantic significance.