Page 192 - March 22 2022 Bonhams

Empress Eugenie (María Eugenia Ignacia Agustina de Palafox y
Kirkpatrick) was born in 1826 and lived to 94 years of age, living
through much of the 19th century and another twenty years of the
twentieth century. She was named Empress of France after her
marriage to Emperor Napoleon III on 30 January 1853, losing the title
after the Emperor was overthrown on 4 September 1870.

Born to Spanish nobility, Eugénie was educated in France, Spain,
and England. Napoléon and Eugénie had one child together,
Napoléon, Prince Imperial (1856–79). After the fall of the Empire, the
three lived in exile in England; Eugénie outlived both her husband and
son and spent the remainder of her life working to commemorate
their memories and the memory of the Second Empire.

Eugénie was very interested in politics and became devoted to the
Bonapartist cause, under the influence of a former mistress of Louis
Napoléon. Her mother’s role as a lavish society hostess, opened up
many channels for her in the upper reaches of the political world. She
first met Prince Louis Napoléon at a reception at the Élysée Palace in
1849. They married in 1853. That he trusted her consultation is clear.
She acted as regent during his short absences in 1859, 1865 and
1870, to visit his soldiers on the battlefield.
In 1863, the Empress established a museum of Asian art the Musée
Chinois at the Palace of Fontainebleau. She carefully curated the
displays of her museum, constituting diplomatic gifts given to her by
embassy’s from around the world. In 1870, after the overthrow of her
husband, she joined her family in exile in England and, after the death
of her husband (1873), continued to play a crucial role in Bonapartist
political activities. When her son died (1879), she assumed the role of
the grande dame in exile.

After World War I, Eugenie lived long enough to see the collapse of
other European monarchies, such as those of Russia, Germany and
Austria-Hungary.

For a more detailed account of the life of the Empress see the
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. website.

A massive jadeite figure of Guanyin of just slightly more slender
proportions and an inch shorter (28 1/2 inches high) in the
Metropolitan Museum, New York, Accession Number: 39.65.24a,
b, is illustrated on the museum website. It was also exhibited in the
exhibition Another World Lies Beyond: Chinese Art and the Divine, 24
August 2019 – 5 January 2020. The sway of the figure and treatment
of the hands gently manipulating an elixir amphora, rather than the
ruyi-scepter of ours, are very comparable, as is the movement of
the robes, the expression and the gathered top-knot held by hairpin.
Even the waisted lotus petal wood stands bear comparison.

Another smaller and later spinach jade figure of Guanyin was sold at
Bonhams, San Francisco, 21 June 2011, lot 8094, and was clothed
in flowing robes and a long mantle over her carefully combed coiffure
and holding a ruyi-scepter in one hand.

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