King Louis Napoleon & his Palace in Dam Square

A m s t e r da m Roya l Pa l ac e

 K i n g L o u i s

Napoleon & his Palace in Dam Square

k o n i n k l i j k p a l e i s a m s t e r d a m

contents

Foreword Marianna van der Zwaag —5—

LOUIS NAPOLEON, FIRST KING OF HOLLAND AND FIRST RESIDENT OF THE AMSTERDAM ROYAL PALACE Louis Napoleon and the Founding of the Dutch Monarchy Eveline Koolhaas-Grosfeld —9— King of Empire Frans Grijzenhout — 19 —

DECOR OF THE AMSTERDAM ROYAL PALACE, BACKGROUND AND CONTEXT The Empire Style and Palace Organisation in France and the Netherlands Bernard Chevallier — 37 —

DESCRIPTION OF THE EMPIRE DECOR A Royal Transformation The Empire Style at the Royal Palace in Amsterdam Renske Cohen Tervaert & Aagje Gosliga — 53 —

Bibliography — 87 —

PLANS OF THE GROUND FLOOR AND FIRST FLOOR 1808–1810 — 92–95 —

Marianna van der Zwaag

Charles Howard Hodges (1764–1837), Portrait of Louis Napoleon (1778–1846).

Oil on canvas, 1809. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

F o r e wo rd

4

The Royal Palace started life in a different guise. It was designed in the Golden Age of the Netherlands to serve as the town hall of Amsterdam, the wealthiest and most powerful city in the young Republic of the Seven United Netherlands. Its history lives on in its art and architecture, which express the pride, aspirations and ideals of Amsterdam’s regents of the time. One hundred and fifty years later, in 1808, the building was reincarnated as the Palace we know today, when 29-yearold King Louis Napoleon (1778–1846) made it his temporary residence. In the early nineteenth century, the Netherlands was a satellite state of France. In 1806 it became a monarchy under Louis Napoleon, the brother of Napoleon Bonaparte, and Amsterdam became the capital of Holland soon afterwards. The building’s five-year period as a French royal and subsequently imperial residence, brief though it was, determined the course of its future. It has served as a palace ever since and is now the reception palace of the Dutch Royal House.

This book is about the early years of the building’s life as a palace and its transformation following King Louis Napoleon’s instructions to remodel the old Town Hall into a royal residence. The best decorators, cabinet-makers and upholsterers in Amsterdam and The Hague were employed to refashion the interior. They brought in thousands of metres of brightly coloured silks and satins, exquisite clocks and chandeliers, and hundreds of chairs, tables and cupboards made from the finest mahogany, gilt copper and bronze to furnish and decorate the seventeenth-century building in the latest French fashion, the Empire style. The match was perfect: the Empire style, like the building itself, was inspired by the art and civilizations of antiquity.

These pages and the accompanying exhibition tell the fascinating story of King Louis Napoleon and his palace in Amsterdam. Four articles by specialists in the field describe the building’s metamorphosis and the context in which it took place. The period was examined earlier in Empire in the Palace of 1983 and The Royal Palace on the Dam of 1989. However, this book goes a step further in that it reviews the circumstances in Europe in which the Empire style evolved, and our changing perceptions of Louis Napoleon, the first king of our country.

With the same efficiency as he tackled the conversion of the Town Hall, Louis introduced or consolidated a number of important reforms whose effects still resonate today. Many of those reforms were developed further by King William I of Orange after his investiture in the Nieuwe Kerk in Amsterdam in 1814, and subsequently by his successors.

5.

Months of effort and commitment have gone into the making of this catalogue and the exhibition of the same name. I wish to thank the authors Frans Grijzenhout, Eveline Koolhaas-Grosfeld, Bernard Chevallier, Renske Cohen Tervaert and Aagje Gosliga, graphic designer Ian Brown (catalogue and exhibition), translators Yvette Rosenberg (catalogue and exhibition) and the Translation Department (AVT) of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (article by Bernard Chevallier). I am also deeply indebted to the museums and organizations whose valuable possessions have been made available for the exhibition. Thanks are also due to the Government Buildings Agency, designer Ger Fijen, Studio Mekaniek and Karina [Meeuwse], who produced the documentaries, and finally, as always, the staff of the Royal Palace.

The palace underwent a major restoration in 2005–2009. Louis Napoleon’s early nineteenth-century furnishings and accessories have, of course, remained in place. In closing, I would like to invite readers to visit the Royal Palace and enjoy the splendour of its newly renovated interior. A warm welcome to all!

Marianna van der Zwaag

Head, Exhibitions Royal Palace, Amsterdam

6

Clock depicting Napoleon as Julius Caesar, Paris, c. 1808 Amsterdam Royal Palace Foundation. Photo Qiu Yang

7.

Eveline Koolhaas-Grosfeld

Lo u i s Na p o l e o n a nd t h e fo u nd i n g of t h e D u tc h m o na rc h y

‘Scenes from the reign of King Louis, 1806–1810’, no. 74 from Prenten-magazijn voor de jeugd, ‘Vaderlandsche geschiedenis’ series.

Published by Jan Schuitemaker, Purmerend, 1845. Atlas van Stolk, Rotterdam

‘This political metamorphosis of the past few days is barely in evidence here. Everything is just as it was before, as if nothing had happened.

The press is silent, the mood relaxed; one hears no arguments for or against; the various political factions seem to have disappeared.’1

8

This passage from a travel journal of 1806 describes the atmosphere in the Netherlands shortly after the founding of the Kingdom of Holland under Louis Napoleon. The author exaggerates as far as the generally calm mood is concerned, but a ‘political metamorphosis’ is not overstating the case.2 The federal Republic, more than two centuries old, was forged into a hereditary, constitutional monarchy; two million republican burghers were reduced to the status of subjects.Yet, for years, historians treated this crucial political and cultural operation as a stepchild. The Batavian-French Era, spawned by the revolution of 1795, was dismissed as a French intrusion, extraneous to the history of the Netherlands. If Louis Napoleon was remembered at all, it was mainly as he is depicted in this nineteenth-century children’s print: a sovereign who had his people’s best interests at heart, but whose ‘frivolous and extravagant’ nature drove them to distraction.3 Things only began to change around the end of the twentieth century. A fresh look at the emergence of the state and nation at the time of the Batavian Republic (1795–1806) also opened people’s eyes to the Kingdom of Holland.4 Research has since advanced to a point where it is possible to make a more balanced assessment of Louis Napoleon’s regime.5 What did our first sovereign do other than build expensive palaces? The following lines address that question.

9.

National monarchy A sovereign thrust upon his people, a foreigner, not a drop of royal blood in his veins, uncrowned (his brother objected), King Louis understood that the best way to legitimize his power was to win the affection of the Dutch. He also knew what was dearest to their hearts: political stability, order, economic recovery and a return to prosperity. Immediately after his accession, Louis expressed his views on the decline of the old Republic and announced his strategy for recovery. He believed that the Dutch lacked esprit national, the drive to work together in pursuit of a common goal. Religious dissension, federalism and particularism stood in the way of modernization and the country’s economic progress. What the stadholders had lacked the authority to achieve, he, as sovereign, would accomplish: a spirit of national unity that would restore prosperity and place the Netherlands among the ranks of the most enlightened nations. Louis pinned his future fame to the success of this project.

He envisaged himself as the symbol of national unity and prosperity; he would go down in history as a Majesté nationale, a national king cherished by his people.6 Concentration of power: constitution Louis’s ideas about unification were remarkably consistent with those of the radical unitarists of the former Batavian Republic. They too had regarded unification as a condition for economic recovery. The proclamation of the One-and-Indivisible Republic in the Staatsregeling of 1798, the Netherlands’ first constitution, marked the start of that process. The principle of unity has never been abandoned since. Trias politica was introduced at the same time; ultimate authority was now in the hands of the representative legislature. However, the federalist reformers continued to dawdle, delaying the process of moulding the old administrative structures in a more centralistic direction – to the frustration of Napoleon, who was constantly pressuring his ally to take a more resolute stand. In 1805, he finally took it upon himself to appoint ambassador Rutger Jan Schimmelpenninck (1761–1825) as president (raadpensionaris) and instructed him to amend the constitution. The Staatsregeling of 1805 gave ‘supreme power’ to the legislature as well as the president, who was only denied legislative power and was required to consult the State Council, a newly-established administrative body. So by 1806, when Napoleon ousted Schimmelpenninck in favour of his brother Louis, the Dutch already had experience of a despotic regime.7 Before the year was out, another new constitution appeared, one even more autocratic than its predecessor: the Constitution of the Kingdom of Holland, our first monarchical constitution. It gave the king absolute power; the State Council could do nothing if he was not present. In certain circumstances it even allowed Louis to govern without the consent of parliament.8

10

Supplied byJoseph Cuel (1763–1846), Somno for the bedroom of Queen Hortense, 1809 Amsterdam Royal Palace Foundation. Photo Qiu Yang

11 .

Given that the new regime, like the old, was committed to centralization, unification and modernization, it is not surprising that some of the prominent administrators of the Batavian Era continued to work under Louis. The radical unitarist and later finance minister Isaac Jan Alexander Gogel (1775–1821), for example, drafted a national, uniform tax system that was adopted under Schimmelpenninck and later implemented under Louis Napoleon.9 Former revolutionaries but also Orangists of the old order recognized the need for modernization. Among the latter was the former regent Adriaan Pieter Twent van Raaphorst (1745–1816), a leading expert on water management and a passionate advocate of a national water authority. Under Schimmelpenninck he had been a member of the legislature and of the coordinating Supervisory Committee for Water Management. In 1808, when Louis Napoleon responded to severe flooding in Zeeland by establishing an independent Ministry of Water Management, he appointed Twent as the first minister.10 There were others, too, who show that Louis chose his advisers and ministers on merit, regardless of whether they had been unitarist, federalist or Orangist.11 At the same time, he regarded people from different backgrounds working together as an informal way to foster an esprit national at the top. Louis pursued the same goal at an official, ceremonious level by creating a chivalric order, the Royal Order of the Union, the first of its kind in the Netherlands.

It was not essentially a distinction for outstanding accomplishment but rather a means of gathering an elite around the Throne who would lead the way in developing national unity. State-building goes hand in hand with nation-building. Louis Napoleon knew that, too. 12 Nation-building The King’s commitment to cultivating a sense of Dutch identity can be seen for example from the caution he exercised in implementing legislation governing a national system of public primary education. The first Dutch School Act, adopted under Schimmelpenninck, aimed at uniform educational reform. For financial reasons, a distinction was made between (free) public and private education, but both were supervised by a national school inspectorate. The act met with Louis’s approval; he objected only to the fact that religious education was still accorded a place in the school system. Even though the bill regarded religion as a form of education that led to enlightenment and integrity, Louis saw it as potentially driving a wedge in society and thus endangering the process of nation-building. As a result, in 1808 he promulgated a decree as an addendum to the act, excluding ministers and priests from local school inspectorates. 13 This of course

12

Willem Bartel van der Kooi (1768–1836) Portrait of Adriaen Pieter Twent (1745–1816), Count of Rosenburg wearing the cross of the Royal Order of the Union Oil on copper, 1809. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Competent administrators

had no implications for the right to freedom of religion. That fundamental freedom, granted in 1798, remained firmly entrenched in the Constitution of the Kingdom of Holland, as did the principle of equality. In consequence, the Reformed Church, which had previously enjoyed certain privileges, was deprived of its preferential treatment.

Office-bearers of all faiths – Protestants, Catholics, Jews, Mennonites, Lutherans, Remonstrants – were now eligible to receive a stipend from

13 .

the State. Moreover, they were entitled to places of worship. This imposed a huge financial and organizational burden on the State. Louis was eager to press on, particularly because he regarded religious equality as a path towards national conciliation. In 1808 he established a Ministry of Religious Affairs. The fact that in the course of his travels around the country he had of his own accord made generous donations to both Protestants and Catholics for the building or renovation of churches may have raised the minister’s hackles, but it would have endeared him to the beneficiaries.14 And then, finally, support for traditional industries and the arts and sciences, the best way of all to foster a spirit of national pride. This, too, Louis tackled with zeal: in 1806 he established a DirectorateGeneral for Fine Arts under the auspices of the Ministry for Home Affairs, and in 1808 the Royal Institute of Science, Letters and Fine Art.15 The National Museum founded in 1800 became the Royal Museum, as the article by Frans Grijzenhout explains. It was a place where painters could study the works of their illustrious predecessors.

On the whole, Louis was less enthusiastic about contemporary art; it offered little that would attract international attention.16 Plans were made to establish a Royal Academy, but public exhibitions were a more immediate option: the first exhibitions of Dutch industrial products and fine arts were held in 1808.17 Louis hoped that the resulting rivalry would help to raise standards generally so that in time Dutch artisans and artists would once again be able to compete abroad. Meanwhile, the most promising painters and architects could obtain bursaries to study in Paris or Rome.18 They were expected to learn the principles of modern, Neoclassicist art, while infusing their work with their own national identity. Painters were expressly instructed to remain true to ‘the spirit of the Flemish (Dutch) School’.19 Conclusion The advent of the monarchy stripped the Dutch of the last vestiges of the democracy they had acquired in 1795. It also had its compensations. In addition to the institutions mentioned earlier, the benefits included a unified Civil Code. The ‘Napoleonic Code for the Kingdom of Holland’ was not a duplication of the Code Napoléon, as it was long perceived to be. Louis insisted on making amendments to suit the customs and traditions of the Dutch. 20 To summarize, it may be said that Louis Napoleon’s regime exercised a powerful and lasting influence on the processes of nation-building and modernization in the Netherlands in the early nineteenth century. Many of his reforms have stood the test of time and resulted in a Ministry of Infrastructure and the Environment responsible for water management, state-sponsored primary education, a code of law, the Royal Institute, national exhibitions,

14

the Prix de Rome. Did Louis succeed in winning the hearts of his subjects? Undeniably, among those who encountered him personally, in the wake of disasters or in the course of working visits. But a national king … ? The tragedy, of course, is that in 1810, four years after his accession, Louis’s kingdom was annexed to the empire of Napoleon.

It was the yoke of that oppression that finally forged a bond of nationhood in the Netherlands.

Eveline Koolhaas-Grosfeld Research officer; text and image editor of publications on cultural history

1 Reis door Holland, in het jaar 1806, Amsterdam 1807, p. 73. This travel journal, published by Evert Maaskamp of Amsterdam, is discussed at length in E. Koolhaas-Grosfeld, De ontdekking van de Nederlander in boeken en prenten rond 1800, Zutphen, 2010, pp. 225–267.

2 On the reaction in the Netherlands, see Velema, 2006, pp. 53–55; Joor 2000, pp. 488– 494.

3 On the prevailing image of Louis Napoleon in the nineteenth century, see Lok 2006.

4 N.C.F. van Sas, De metamorfose van Nederland, pp. 69–129 and 275–294.

5 See Het Koninkrijk Holland, also published as A. Jourdan (ed.), Louis Bonaparte, Roi de Hollande, Paris, 2010; J.Hallebeek and A.J.B.Sirks (ed.), Nederland in Franse schaduw; E. KoolhaasGrosfeld et al. (ed.), Lodewijk Napoleon en de kunsten in het Koninkrijk Holland; M. van der Burg, Nederland onder Franse invloed; J.H. Lokin et al. (ed.), Tweehonderd jaar codificatie van het privaatrecht in Nederland. Recent reappraisals: P.J. Rietbergen, Lodewijk Napoleon, Nederlands eerste koning 1806–1810; K. Meeuwse (ed.), Lodewijk Napoleon. De Hollandse jaren; Tweehonderd jaar Koninkrijk Holland. Theme edition of Geschiedenis Magazine, 2006, no. 3; W. Uitterhoeve, Koning, keizer, admiraal.

6 A. Jourdan 2006; M. van der Burg 2009, pp. 57–58.

7 J. Rosendaal 2005, pp. 24–32; Van Sas 2004, pp. 293–302.

8 M. van der Burg 2009, pp. 45–74; Dölle 2006; Roeleveld 2006.

9 Ydema 2006.

10 Beekelaar 2012; Van de Ven, 2006.

11 Jourdan/Van den Burg 2005.

12 Sanders 2007.

13 Braster 2006; Van den Burg 2009, pp. 125–151.

14 Schoon 2006.

15 Brummel 1951; Mijnhardt 1997; Hoogenboom 1985;Van der Burg 2009, pp. 179–201.

16 Bergvelt 1984.

17 On plans for an Academy, Reynaerts 2001, pp.

29– 60; on exhibitions of industrial products: Eliëns 2007; on art exhibitions: A. Hoogenboom 1985; Ouwerkerk 2003, pp.

21–36; Koolhaas-Grosfeld 2001.

18 Bergvelt 1984.

19 Hoogenboom 1985, p. 37.

20 Van der Burg 2009, pp. 97–125; Brandsma 2006.

15 .

16

Supplied by Joseph Cuel (1763–1846), Fauteuil for the officers’ salon, 1808 Amsterdam Royal Palace Foundation. Photo Qiu Yang

Supplied by Joseph Cuel (1763–1846), Fauteuil for the Crown Prince’s salon, 1809 Amsterdam Royal Palace Foundation. Photo Qiu Yang

17 .

Frans Grijzenhout

K i n g of E m p i r e On 20 April 1808, a long, stately procession made its way from Utrecht to Amsterdam. At its centre was the state coach of Louis Bonaparte, also known as King Louis Napoleon of Holland. Early that afternoon the company reached Amsterdam’s tollgate at Diemermeer, where the burgomaster presented the King with the keys to the city on a gold-tasselled, blue velvet cushion. From there, cheered on by thousands of curious citizens, the procession continued through triumphal arches built especially for the occasion, along Middenweg to the Plantage, past the botanical gardens and the synagogue, over the Blauwbrug, down Amstelstraat to the Botermarkt (now Rembrandtplein), past the Mint and finally along the narrow Kalverstraat to Dam Square. Residents and shopkeepers had been expressly instructed not to leave ‘wheelbarrows, tables, stalls, merchandise or vehicles’ along the route. On arriving in Dam Square to the roar of a thirty-three gun salute the King entered what up to that moment had been Amsterdam’s proud Town Hall.1 Apart from 29 July 1655, the day of the inauguration of Amsterdam’s Town Hall, no date in the building’s history has been as significant, symbolically and practically, as 20 April 1806. Changing the building’s function changed everything it stood for in every conceivable way. The repercussions are still evident today, long after the hapless King Louis and his successor, his brother Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, left the palace and the country.

To the capital On Louis Napoleon’s arrival in Amsterdam the city became the capital of the Kingdom. This marked the ending of the political culture of the old Republic of the United Netherlands, which had been a federation of seven, theoretically equal provinces since it was founded in the late sixteenth century. In that constellation The Hague had been the administrative centre of Holland, the most powerful province and the seat of the States-General of the Republic. After the founding of the Batavian Republic in 1795 and the establishment of a national unitary state in 1798, The Hague became the true political centre of the country. It was the seat of the National Assembly and the government ministries that were created after the Batavian Revolution. But the idea of a ‘capital city’ was as alien to the revolutionary ethic of the Batavian unitary state as it was to the fundamental principles of the old Republic.

18

François-Honoré-Georges Jacob-Desmalter (1770–1841), Bergère from the bedroom of Queen Hortense, 1805–1808 Amsterdam Royal Palace Foundation. Photo Qiu Yang

19 .

was ‘meagre and exceedingly humble … nothing could be more dispiriting than a home made from tiny bricks, with poorly appointed rooms, in bleak and muddy surroundings’. One would surely die of boredom.6 No, it had to be Amsterdam.

Ludwig Gottlieb Portman (1772–after 1828) Louis Napoleon’s Arrival at the Palace in Dam Square on 20 April 1808 Aquatint, 1808. Amsterdam City Archives

From Town Hall to Palace

In 1806, when Napoleon Bonaparte placed his brother Louis Napoleon on the throne of Holland, the new King immediately decided to establish his court and all his state institutions in Amsterdam. It was an obvious choice: Amsterdam was the largest city in the country and it had always been the wealthiest.2 In any event, Louis considered the Stadholders’s Quarter in the Binnenhof in The Hague totally unsuitable for a sovereign’s palace. He would be holding court in ‘a palace cobbled together from a cluster of outdated, tasteless buildings’ which formed an ‘offensive contrast’ to the beautiful residences in other parts of the city.3 He was no more impressed by the building on the Utrecht Drift, which in 1807 had been converted into a palace halfway along the route to Amsterdam, even though it had been extensively rebuilt and redecorated.4 Added to that, the contrast between the refinement of the French and the boorishness of the Dutch was a constant source of amusement to his court. ‘From the most distinguished to the misbegotten, lowliest of courtiers, all were unable to suppress their mirth when they encountered any of those sound and strapping Dutchmen, who looked so sheepish in their court robes that it was impossible to contain one’s laughter at the sight of them.’5 Of the residences available to the King, Het Loo Palace in Apeldoorn and Welgelegen, near Haarlem, were most to his liking. Soestdijk, in the eyes of the French,

20

The Hague had never formally been the capital of the Republic.

Amsterdam, on the other hand, had not been designed to serve as a royal seat or political capital. With its tradition of civic autonomy and the infrastructure of a compact, baroque mercantile city, Amsterdam was unsuitable for a royal court and a large government apparatus. A few of the larger building complexes were modified to accommodate ministries. The Finance Ministry was assigned to the old St Jorishof in Spinhuissteeg, and the Department of Naval Affairs and Colonies to the East India House. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs was in what is now Spuistraat, and the Ministries of Religious Affairs, War, Justice and Police occupied a row of buildings in the Oude Turfmarkt. Other institutions, like the State Secretary’s Office, the Chamber of Accounts, the Court of Justice, the Water Management Board and the Royal Printing Office, also found premises in the city in the course of 1808.

But all of this took its toll. As in Utrecht six months earlier, a number of properties were expropriated, for which the owners received a total of 300,000 guilders in compensation. Poignant letters attest to the plight of residents and occupants of the Oudezijds Almshouse, the Gasthuis Hospital, the Men’s Almshouse, the St Jorishof and the galleries above the Stock Exchange who were driven from their homes and workplaces for the benefit of the King and his ministers. Pieter de Wit, for example, a resident of St Jorishof, stood by helplessly as the home he had ‘put together with care and effort’ was taken from him and his family. It would surely send them ‘to an early grave’.7 But his entreaties fell on deaf ears.

The task of converting the Town Hall into the Royal Place was tackled even more zealously than setting up the ministries. After a pro forma transfer of the building by the council in early February 1808, the King gave orders for it to be vacated. In the following weeks, every effort was made to ensure that on 20 April he would be able to move into at least part of the converted and redecorated building. The cost (one million guilders)8 was not an issue and no effort was spared (the builders worked day and night) to transform the Town Hall into a palace fit for royalty. Colourful and costly furnishings in the fashionable Empire style changed the interior beyond recognition. In the meantime, the city council had moved to the Prinsenhof in Oudezijds Voorburgwal.9

21 .

For and against The new dispensation after 1806 deprived the council of recourse to the King, thus preventing it from soliciting his permission to remain in the old Town Hall. Only Johan Valckenaer, a seasoned Batavian politician and independent advisor to the King, had the courage to speak out. At first, in the autumn of 1807, he had told the King that the prevailing mood in the city reflected that of the melancholy season of the year and that the King’s visit to Amsterdam might boost people’s morale. Just the sight of messengers delivering chairs emblazoned with the royal eagle would do them a power of good.10 At the time Valckenaer wrote these words, however, the decision to turn the Town Hall into a palace had not yet been taken. In a memorandum written afterwards, on 5 February 1808, he warned the King that the people of Amsterdam

22

Gerrit Lamberts (1776–1850) The Demolition of the Weigh-House, pen, brush and ink on paper, 1808 Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

The city council in office at the time was the last of a succession that had governed Amsterdam since the founding of the Batavian Republic on 19 January 1795. Although the Batavian Revolution, like the sixteenth-century Dutch Revolt, ranks among the most important events in Dutch history, it caused less upheaval in Amsterdam’s administration.

The main difference compared to the situation before 1795 was that the city council now held the reins, whereas it had previously exercised remarkably little influence. After 1795, the burgomasters, who had wielded ultimate power in the old Republic, were reduced to implementing council resolutions. This was a real and radical change in the balance of power. The people who made up the city’s political apparatus also changed in 1795. New councillors were appointed and the council’s increasingly frequent practice of co-opting members from a small elite of regent families became a thing of the past.Yet it must also be said that the Batavian Revolution was a peaceful transition, certainly in Amsterdam. Not a drop of blood was shed and the homines novi of 1795 were respectable lawyers, merchants and entrepreneurs, so respectable that they were often criticized by members of more radical factions for their lenience towards supporters of the former Orangist regime. At no time in the history of the building, other than during the equally turbulent Patriot era (1780–1787), were as many civic committees and impassioned revolutionaries to be seen in the old Town Hall as in the first few years after the 1795 Revolution. As it happens, none of this had much impact on the interior of the building. Although some departments were given new names and corresponding new signs above their doors, no further alterations were needed to what became known as the Municipal Hall. And after 1802, by which time the revolutionary spirit had waned, there was no longer any public opposition.

would take the news badly. Finally, in the hope of changing the King’s mind, Valckenaer enumerated all the disadvantages of the building: ‘Cold rooms which are also damp, excessively large and dismal, affording none of the comforts that a modern building would be able to offer. High, age-worn ceilings which are susceptible to draughts. Antiquated fireplaces embedded in exceedingly thick stone walls, rendering them totally incapable of being improved to suit modern tastes. No provision whatsoever to retreat in privacy and little opportunity to move about freely inside the building; the freestanding building is exposed on all sides to the prying eyes and indiscretion of every layabout in the city. One cannot enter or depart from the building without being exposed to the elements, in view and within earshot of all who loiter in the square in front at all hours of the day and night. The ground floor arcades are too narrow to admit your coaches. Your Majesty, they would be unable to reach even the bottom step of the large staircase.’

And so he continued. Valckenaer urged the King in the strongest terms

23 .

to reverse his decision not only for practical reasons but, more importantly, because he anticipated that the King would otherwise lose the sympathy of the people of Amsterdam. It would be far better for all, Valckenaer believed, if the King were to have a splendid and modern new palace built in the Plantage. He concluded his valiant appeal by begging the King’s pardon for his presumption.11 In fact, Valckenaer’s well-intended letter may have done more harm than good. In support of his case, he had drawn attention to the problem of noise and traffic around the Weigh-House, directly opposite the Town Hall, which would surely vex the King. Crates and barrels littered the square; there was always a commotion; delivery carts making for the Weigh-House obstructed the narrow alleys all around it. The King’s laconic reply came a day later: ‘I wish the Weigh-House opposite the Town Hall of Amsterdam to be demolished in order to allow passage. Give orders to this effect immediately.’ After some shaking of heads and shuffling of feet, this decree too was soon carried out.

Other voices were raised under cover of anonymity. On 15 February 1808 Valckenaer informed the King that an audience at the theatre attending a performance of The Miller of Sans Souci had interpreted the comedy as a reference to the manner in which His Majesty was conducting his affairs. The play was about Frederick the Great of Prussia, who had resolved to demolish a windmill that obstructed his view from Sans Souci Palace, but abandoned his misbegotten plan in response to the miller’s vehement protest. Any parallels to the matter of the Town Hall or the Weigh-House met with loud applause.12 Two years earlier, in 1806, Jan Frederik Helmers had complained to his fellow citizens, with reference to classical history. In a Fragment of an unpublished tragedy, he had implicitly likened Holland to Greece at the time of its defeat by Rome in the second century B.C. It opened with the famous words, ‘The judgment has fallen. Yea, Greeks, you are enslaved’.

Now, in 1808, Helmers had qualms about publishing three poems he had just written criticizing the state of the nation, one of which was a lament on Louis Napoleon’s decision to use the Town Hall of Amsterdam as his palace. The following lines convey the gist of it: Behold your Capitol yielded to the tyrant.

Some say it was a gift prompted by love for your Sovereign, But no, he wrested it from you, a plundered trophy, Banishing your honourable council, oh, brazen affront!

The Eighth Wonder, seal of our fathers’ glory; Strong through might and wisdom (as history attests), Famed throughout Europe, that vestige of erstwhile power Serves only to shame us, unworthy sons.

A tyrant, Holland’s curse, emboldened by power, Commands… and the Capitol becomes his seat.13

24

The poem was frank and forthright, and that was all very well. But it unfairly disregarded the King’s well-intentioned efforts to understand and indeed identify with Dutch history and culture. Louis went to such extremes that he became increasingly alienated from his brother the emperor. In July 1810 he was forced to abdicate and Holland was annexed to France. The fact that Amsterdam became the third most important city in the Empire, after Paris and Rome, and that in October 1811 it received a visit from the emperor and his consort certainly meant something, but, it offered little consolation.

Interior and exterior In 1808 the old Town Hall underwent a complete metamorphosis. The transformation involved far more than a few alterations to the building or the furnishing of rooms in the latest fashion. The essence of the building changed radically and irrevocably.

Valckenaer had been right: in its original state, the Town Hall was totally unsuitable for a palace. It was a public building, open to everyone in the city. It was also typically a workplace where business of all kinds was conducted every day. Moreover, the symbolism of the building focused entirely on representing Amsterdam as a powerful mercantile metropolis in a civic republic. This, then, was the building in which the French architect Jean Thomas Thibault and Amsterdam’s assistant municipal architect Bartholomeus Ziesenis were expected to turn into a royal palace with very specific requirements regarding its function, its internal layout and the image it was to project. And indeed they succeeded admirably.

A royal palace, by Napoleonic standards, was arranged around three main points: the ‘grand state apartment’, the king’s apartment and the queen’s apartment.14 The grand state apartment normally consisted of a number of function rooms, the most important of which was the throne room. There would also be a music room or ballroom and a banqueting hall. The king’s and the queen’s apartments were divided into a state apartment and what was known as an inner apartment. Each of the state apartments contained, among other rooms, a salon and a dining room. The inner apartments comprised at least a bedroom, a dressing room and a library. The king’s inner apartment would also contain an office and a map room.

Thibault en Ziesenis managed to locate most of these rooms, in logical relation to each other, on the first floor.15 To create a large formal banqueting hall with foyers and lounges they sectioned off the long galleries around the two courtyards. The former Citizens’ Hall, in the centre of the building, was redecorated to become the grand reception room that impressed so many of its visitors. The Throne Room and other large state rooms were on the west side of the building. The

25 .

26

Title page of Etiquette du Palais Royal, 1808.

House of Orange-Nassau Historic Collections Trust, The Hague / Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

King’s state apartment and inner apartment were on the sunny, east side, overlooking Dam Square. In 1809 a room for the Crown Prince was created on the south side, adjacent to the King’s inner apartment.

Queen Hortense de Beauharnais, who was to spend no more than four weeks in the palace, in 1810, was consigned to the dark, northwest side of the building. Years later, she still complained about the gloomy rooms, the stench of the water in the Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal canal, and the depressing death’s head frieze in her rooms. But her relationship with the King was troubled, and she never really warmed to the Netherlands.16 A palace also had to provide accommodation for a large staff. Louis Napoleon’s court consisted of several hundred members, some of whom lived on the premises. They were assigned rooms on the ground floor and the second and third floors. The pages and some senior staff lived in other parts of the city. Maintaining a household of that magnitude was expensive. The cost was initially four million guilders a year, but in 1810, after a series of spending cuts, it was reduced to about 2.3 million guilders.17 The court was organized into four separate units.18 The Grand Marshal was the senior military officer in charge of the King’s residences. In that capacity, he also arranged audiences with the King. In addition, he was responsible for ‘comestibles, tables, firewood, light, the silver, the linen and the livery’. The Grand Chamberlain oversaw ceremonies and protocol at the court. The Crown Equerry was responsible for everything pertaining to the coaches, horses, pages and footmen, and the Master of the Hounds organized the all-important hunt. The Household also comprised a number of officers who took orders directly from the King. Of those, the Intendant-General managed the sovereign domains and was responsible for the ‘furnishings, works, repairs and maintenance of the buildings’. Each palace also employed a Comptroller, who was ‘responsible for the storage of furniture, inspection of the buildings and gardens, and the enhancement and upkeep of same.’

The right of access to various parts of the palace was strictly hierarchical. The rules were laid down in minute detail, room by room and function by function. Of all senior officers, the Grand Marshal and the Grand Chamberlain were allowed the closest access to the King.

The Grand Chamberlain attended him in his dressing room and helped him dress for ceremonial occasions, arranging his robe over the shoulders, pinning on his decorations, and handing him his sword, hat and gloves. The Grand Marshal always remained sufficiently close to hear the King’s orders. He escorted the King to and from table at ceremonial dinners and kept his glass filled. The Grand Chamberlain and the Grand Marshal had almost unrestricted access to all rooms in the palace. At the other end of the spectrum were the household assistants, who cleaned the King’s bedroom daily under the supervision of a

chamberlain. However, they entered from the back corridor and were barred from the state rooms.

The King’s emergence from his inner apartment and his arrival in the state rooms symbolically marked the start of his working day.

About an hour after rising, he would proceed to his state apartment, where people of all kinds were presented to him, where he held audiences, conferred with ministers and other senior functionaries,

27 .

presided over less formal ceremonial dinners, and where in the evenings, games were played and relatively small soirées or balls were held. In the late afternoon the King retired to his inner apartment to read or work in silence (the rules of etiquette dictated that the chamberlain was to knock softly on the door and, if there was no reply, to wait a quarter of an hour before trying again). The palace had a wellstocked library. It contained a few books on theology and moral philosophy, along with large collections on military subjects, the arts and sciences, the histories of Ancient Greece and Rome, France and the Netherlands, travel literature and fiction.

Grand public ceremonies were held in the large state apartment.

The most important of these rooms was the Throne Room, which was lavishly decorated in velvet and red satin with classicist motifs embroidered in gold thread. The throne and two armchairs for the Queen and the Crown Prince stood on a gold dais covered with a green baize carpet.19 Seated on the throne, the King would receive representatives of the highest state institutions, such as the State Council, Parliament or the Supreme Court. Here, too, he initiated members into the Royal Order of the Union, which he had established himself. In the most formal state rooms were marble and plaster busts of the King, and painted portraits of the Queen and the Crown Prince.

The banqueting hall and the reception room in the large state apartment were used for formal dinners, celebrations and balls. The King possessed huge collections of porcelain tableware, silver and glassware, and a wine cellar containing thousands of bottles of wine.

The court employed a directeur de la musique, a maître de ballet, two singers and a dozen musicians, one of whom was the celebrated flautist Louis Drouet. But that was modest compared to the royal chapel, which retained three chaplains, three curates-in-charge, eight curates, a pastor, a sacristan, an organist, a sexton, four singers and four choristers. The palace’s music library included operas by Gluck, Salieri, Spontini, masses by Mozart and Haydn, string quartets by Haydn and overtures by Paisiello, Cherubini, Cimarosa and Mozart (The Magic Flute).20 The biggest function held in the palace during those years was to celebrate the first anniversary of the institution of the Royal Order of the Union, on 25 April 1808, just a few days after taking up residence there, Louis impressed his guests by delivering a short speech in Dutch.21 The programme for the evening included the performance of a French cantata, probably composed by the directeur de la musique Charles-Henri Plantade, in which Neptune, Apollo and Mars argue as to which of Holland’s greatest men they protected. Are they not Willebrord Snell and admirals Michiel de Ruyter, Maarten Tromp and Piet Heijn?, asks Neptune the sea god. The war god Mars proposes instead Menno van Coehoorn, Hendrik van Brederode and Janus Douza.

28

But according to Apollo, god of poetry and music, the honour falls to Vondel, Hubert Poot, Erasmus, and Hugo de Groot, the immortal Herman Boerhaave and Coster. Jupiter, ruler of the gods and, here, unmistakably the mythological personification of the King, commands his subjects to make peace, whereupon the Knights of the Order conclude the performance with a song in the King’s honour.22 And this was how the King unveiled his cultural and political programme: an autocratic monarchy in a classicist entourage aimed at reviving the fame and prosperity of the Netherlands.

The old Town Hall turned into a royal palace in 1808. From being a place where citizens met one another and conducted their affairs with the city, the building became a showcase of royal pomp and prestige.

From being a public facility, open to all, it became a heavily guarded bastion of the elite. Instead of being inclusive of the community as a whole, it became exclusive; only a privileged few were allowed in.

Whereas the Town Hall had been primarily concerned with functional administration, the palace was about ceremonial display. The installation of the balcony on the front façade in 1808 symbolized the monarchy distancing itself from the people, just as the transformation of the Citizens’ Hall into a ballroom encapsulated the change of function and the transition from republican to monarchical representation.

However grand and important the fashionable interior in the Empire style may have been, it is not far from the truth to say that on 20 April 1808 the building was transformed from an interior into an exterior.

Museum One section of the palace was open to the public, namely, the Royal Museum.23 It occupied a number of rooms on the second floor, at the back of the building, and was accessible from the entrance in Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal. It contained several hundred works of art, most of which had come from the former National Art Gallery, which had been in The Hague since 1800. The Royal Museum in the palace opened on 15 September 1808 with the first Exhibition of Living Masters. The collection in the new museum – in line with the King’s cultural policy – consisted mostly of paintings relating to the history of the Netherlands. Among them were a few important works that had belonged to the municipality until 1808, such as Rembrandt’s Night Watch and Bartholomeus van der Helst’s Celebration of the Peace of Munster. There were also paintings of biblical and classical subjects and a collection of works that were supposed to give a complete overview of the Dutch School. The museum was not there for long. In 1817, the collections were moved to the Trippenhuis on Kloveniersvoorburgwal, and in 1885 to the new building of the Rijksmuseum.

29 .

The palace’s function as a museum began with the ‘art chamber’ that was housed in the Town Hall back in the eighteenth-century.

Artists could go there to study and copy prints and marble and plaster copies of classical works. The Town Hall´s cabinet of curiosities contained ‘antiquities´ recalling the guilds which the Batavian revolutionaries had abolished, and the city administration which had disappeared in 1795. The Royal Museum, on the other hand, was mainly an instrument of the new royal presence, even though it was not officially part of the palace and the King himself contributed little to its funding.

The inclusion of art that had previously belonged to the House of Orange, the city of Amsterdam and important private collections of the Dutch School is a sign that the palace had become the custodian of what in France, after the revolution, was regarded as the nation´s ´patrimony´: art that had belonged to and enhanced the status of former masters, which had now lost its function and come, like a shared heirloom, into the hands of the nation.24 The building´s loss of its original function in 1808 turned it into heritage, in a sense, like the paintings by Rembrandt, Van der Helst and others that went to the Royal Museum as heritage.

Hall, with its new function and radical redecoration in Empire style, a second lease of life. Even in the light of the growing interest in the original decoration programme of the republican Town Hall and the outstanding restoration and integration of that programme into the décor of the palace, the decoration of the rooms on the first floor with Louis Napoleon’s Empire furniture still has the power to impress. It is this unique combination of a seventeenth-century republican decoration programme and early nineteenth-century furnishings that gives the Royal Palace in Dam Square its distinctive character. In this unparalleled monument of Dutch republicanism Louis Napoleon managed to emerge as the King of Empire.

Frans Grijzenhout Professor of Early Modern Art History University of Amsterdam

Napoleon’s bed In retrospect, it would have been feasible for the palace to regain its original function after the French had left. But history took a different course. In 1813, for a variety of reasons, the Netherlands chose not to return to the pre-1806 republican model. And according to the Constitution of the Kingdom, the investiture of a head of state must take place in Amsterdam, as has been the case since 1814, in the Nieuwe Kerk, next to the palace. As a result, the Royal Palace has kept the name and function it acquired in the time of Louis Napoleon.

The historian Colenbrander once wrote that King William I of Orange must have heeded the advice that Joseph Fouché is said to have given the Bourbons after Waterloo, namely, that they should spend a night in Napoleon’s bed (‘se coucher dans le lit de Napoléon’).25 Colenbrander meant it metaphorically, of course, in the sense that the new monarchy of 1813 used and built on the political structures that had been created in the Netherlands in the Batavian-French period.

That observation is correct to some extent, as the reader will see elsewhere in this book. We can only speculate as to whether the Prince of Orange actually did sleep in the bed Louis Napoleon had ordered for his new palace in Amsterdam, but what we do know is that Louis Napoleon’s throne remained in the Throne Room for some time, even after the investiture of William I.26 Notwithstanding the laments of Helmers and others at the time, we can conclude that Louis Napoleon succeeded in giving the Town

30

31 .

This article is a rework of ‘The Palace of the Bonapartes’ published in Goossens 2005, pp. 62– 91.

1 Het verheugd hoofdstad Amsterdam bij de blijde inkomst van Zijne Majesteit Lodewijk Napoleon, Koning van Holland, op den XX april des jaars MDCCCVIII, Amsterdam 1808.

2 On Louis Napoleon, see for example, Bonaparte 1820; Rocquain 1875; exhib. cat.; Zaal 1983; Amelunxen 1989; De Negentiende Eeuw 30 (2006) nos. 3– 4.

3 Garnier 1823, pp. 10–15.

4 Evers 1941.

5 Garnier 1823, p. 107.

6 Ibid., p. 166.

7 Pieter de Wit to the King, 29 June 1808. SA, 5053, Nieuw Stedelijk Bestuur, inv.no. 905.

8 AN, Archives du cabinet du Louis Bonaparte, Roi de Hollande (1806–1810), AF IV 1788, no.

128.

9 For a general overview of the situation in the palace in 1808–1813, Emeis 1981.

10 Johan Valckenaer to the King, 23 November 1807, AN, AF IV 1820, no. 40.

11 Valckenaer to the King, 5 February 1808, UB Leiden, Collectie Valckenaer. The original French text is in Brugmans 1913, pp. 19–21.

See also Zaal 1983, pp. 83–84.

12 Valckenaer to the King, 15 February 1808, published in Brugmans 1913, p. 41.

13 Van Hattum 1988, the passage quoted is on pp.

15–16.

14 For the following, Étiquette 1808; the manuscript is in AN, AF IV 1788, no. 4. Most documents concerning Louis Napoleon’s court are in Paris. A few are in the Dutch Royal Archives: Fragmentarchieven van het Civiele Huis van Lodewijk Napoleon, koning van Holland. On the conversion of the palace in

32

1808 in relation to court etiquette, see also Vlaardingerbroek 2011, pp. 175–203, esp. pp. 176–181.

15 For the following: Lunsingh Scheurleer 1953, pp. 242–260 and Lunsingh Scheurleer 1955, pp.

25–38; Fleurbaay 1983; Huisken 1996. The Archives of the Treasurer and the Intendant at the time of the Empire, in the Royal Archives, The Hague, which include a detailed overview of acquisitions for the refurbishing of the palace in 1808, are of inestimable value for all these publications. See also NA, 2.01.25, Ministry of Finance 1795–1813, Crown Domains and the Court of King Napoleon and the French Emperor, 1806–1813, esp. nos. 21, 54, 100, 384.

16 Hanoteau 1927–1930, pp. 75–87. The person of Hortense de Beauharnais has attracted many writers, notably women: Wright 1961; De la Croix 1984; Wagener 1992; exhib. cat. 1993; Dufresne 2000.

17 AN, AF IV 1720, no. 13 ; AF IV 1788, nos. 117, 121, 146–147; AN, Maison de l’Empereur, O2 1792, nos. 326–341.

18 For the following, see the sources and literature referred to in note 15.

19 AN, O2 668.

20 AN, 02, 1094–73.

21 AN, AF IV 1819, no. 150.

22 AN, AF IV 1819, no. 37.

23 For more on the following, see Grijzenhout 1999.

24 Grijzenhout 2007, ´Inleiding´, pp. 7– 9.

25 Colenbrander 1903, pp. 720–781, esp. p. 762.

Also Colenbrander 1919, pp. 48– 92, esp. p. 75.

See also Lok 2009, chapter 3: ‘Het bed van Napoleon’, pp. 75–116.

26 Vlaardingerbroek, op.cit. 205

Carel Breytspraak (1769–1810), Bookcase made for the King’s library, 1809 Amsterdam Royal Palace Foundation. Photo Qiu Yang

33 .

34

Eduard Muller (1760–1830), Table from the salon of Queen Hortense, 1808 Amsterdam Royal Palace Foundation. Photo Qiu Yang

Supplied by Joseph Cuel (1763–1846), Secretaire for the boudoir of Queen Hortense, 1809 Amsterdam Royal Palace Foundation. Photo Qiu Yang

35 .

Bernard Chevallier

The Throne Room in the Palace of Fontainebleau.

Réunion des Musées Nationaux-GP, Paris. Photo Gérard Blot

T h e Em p i r e S t y le a nd Pa lac e O rg a n i s at i o n i n F r a n c e a nd t h e Ne t h e rla n ds

36

Is there really any such thing as the Empire style? It is the only period in French art history not called after a reigning monarch. Nobody would ever dream of talking about ‘Napoleon I style’, yet Empire style is haunted by the Emperor’s pervasive presence. In fact, the style represents just a phase in the more general Neo-Classical movement that swept through Europe following the emergence of a new taste for classical antiquity in 1765–1770 and continued to dominate stylistic developments right up to the abrupt and radical return of Historicism in around 1830–1835. The Neo-Classical movement comprises two distinct periods, each with its own style: the first, following the disruption caused by the Revolution, features a continuation of the archaeologically inspired Louis XVI style of the late 1780s and is all delicacy, imagination and charm; the second – much more grandiose, solemn and heavily embellished – starts to emerge in 1808 and disappears in France towards 1835, during the reign of King Louis Philippe (1830– 1848), although it lingers on beyond that date elsewhere in Europe, in Russia and in the United States.

In reaction to the scalloped forms of what is commonly known as Louis XV style, the 1760s imposed a new aesthetic linked to the rediscovery of classical antiquity. This new ‘Grecian’ or ‘Etruscan’ taste was inspired both by publications on the excavations carried out at Herculaneum (1719) and Pompeii (1750) and by the recent discovery of ancient monuments in Greece and Sicily. This new knowledge of the Greco-Roman world and awareness of a certain number of Egyptianstyle motifs (disseminated mainly via the work of Piranesi) provide the ingredients for the archaeological style that was in vogue just prior to the Revolution and of which Queen Marie Antoinette was so fond. By the end of the 1780s, artists and craftsmen were already employing the vocabulary of sphinxes, palmettes, rosettes, clawed feet and lions’ heads that was to become that of the Empire period a quarter of a century later. It was their training in this strongly archaeological aesthetic that drove a pair of young architects called Charles Percier (1764– 1838) and Pierre Fontaine (1762–1853) to spend the 1785–1790

37 .

The Imperial Throne at the Palais des Tuileries, in Charles Percier, Recueil de décorations intérieures, Paris, 1812, no. 48.

Royal Library, The Hague

period in Rome, studying the architecture of classical antiquity and the more modern period; they returned to France with a mass of drawings, which they then used to illustrate publications like Palais, maisons et autres édifices modernes dessinés à Rome (1798) and, most notably of all, their book on interior decoration, Recueil de décorations intérieures (first published in 1801). Circulating widely throughout Europe, these engravings provided models for a multitude of craftsmen and the motifs shown in them directly inspired the lyres, palmettes, thunderbolts, winged sphinxes, foliated scrolls, figures of Victory, griffins and torches that pervaded the vocabulary of the decorative arts for over twenty years. The influence of Percier and Fontaine on the Empire period can be compared to that of the painter Charles Lebrun on French arts in the second half of the 17th century and in particular on the decoration of Versailles under Louis XIV. The two architects successfully interpreted the artistic ideas of Napoleon, who once confided to his director general of museums, Vivant Denon, that his paramount goal was to create an impression of size and grandeur. To the Emperor, splendour was equal to beauty. Indeed, the single aim of this whole generation, brought up on Neo-Classicism and imbued with the culture of classical antiquity, was to outdo Ancient Rome. In 1808 the Emperor actually declared: ‘I am determined to see the artists of France outshine the glories of Athens and Italy’.1

38

The excellent quality of goods produced under the Empire shows that the disbanding of the guild system at the time of the Revolution had diminished neither the quality nor the technical sophistication of French craftsmanship and that the exhibitions of industrial products organised periodically by the government was – as intended – a successful strategy for encouraging the industrialisation of the decorative arts. The Emperor was to benefit from this development when he came to refurbish, within a period of barely 14 years, all the royal residences that had been stripped of their furnishings during the Revolution. Indeed, he went so far as to say: ‘Whenever improvements are being made to a palace, we should in future consider the possible benefits to the arts and manufacturing industries, something that has not been done so far’.

Initially, as First Consul, Napoleon had access only to the Tuileries. This palace was hastily furnished between December 1799 and February 1800, using whatever pieces had survived the collapse of the Ancien Régime supplemented by a few new purchases. Things moved into higher gear when the palace of Saint-Cloud was prepared for him to take up residence in the autumn of 1802. Reuse of many existing furnishings and a few orders for sumptuous new ones sufficed, but the result was not yet a residence fit for a sovereign. With the establishment of the Empire in the Constitution of the Year XII (18 May 1804),

39 .

After the initial rush to make the palaces habitable, things began to change in 1805–1806.

The first specific orders concern the interiors of throne rooms in the Tuileries and Saint-Cloud. Then came an era in which Napoleon gave orders for the furnishing of the palace at Laeken and the refurbishment of part of the Grand Trianon for occupation by his mother, while his sister Pauline occupied the Petit Trianon. His principal supplier was the firm of Jacob-Desmalter (1803–1813); for the palace of Fontainebleau alone, the company supplied 217 beds, 58 console tables, 87 secretaires, 106 writing tables and 577 chairs. The sheer numbers reveal the pressure put on the cabinet-makers, bronze workers, silk weavers, upholsterers and porcelain manufacturers of France to accomplish this fabulous programme of works.

40

Napoleon wanted to create a court whose ostentatiously opulent way of life would entail high expenditure on luxuries and hence support the relevant industries and encourage the arts. The design and decoration of furniture changed. It became heavier and more massive: straightbacked chairs were preferred to scroll backs, tapering legs gave way to double-baluster models, straight armrests became curved, gondola chairs became increasingly popular and – as if to allay a kind of horror vacui – surfaces were invaded by a growing abundance of decorative motifs. Moreover, mahogany was replaced by gilded wood carved into palmettes, flowers and rosettes (a change not entirely due to the continental blockade, which prevented the importation of tropical timber).

This new style, with its more massive design and increasing emphasis on floral motifs and heavier decorative carving, emerged in the period around 1808. This was also the time when the Emperor prescribed the use of native rather than imported woods, producing a period of topclass cabinet-making in plane, elm, yew and ash – all pale woods, anticipating the so-called Charles X style (prevalent during the reign of the last Bourbon King of France, between 1824 and 1830).

The Emperor’s bathroom, Fontainebleau.

Réunion des Musées Nationaux-GP, Paris. Photo Jean-Pierre Lagiewski

however, the civil list provided for a Crown Domain that included all the former palaces of Louis XVI: not just the Tuileries and Saint-Cloud, but also Versailles, the Trianon, the Louvre, Meudon, Rambouillet, Compiègne and Fontainebleau. Moreover, the Constitution specified that, since the Emperor was to visit all regions of France, ‘imperial palaces are to be established at the four principal points of the Empire’.2 Accordingly, Napoleon acquired palaces at Strasbourg, Bordeaux, Marrac (near Bayonne) and Laeken (just outside Brussels).

Further afield, he occupied palaces in Mainz when in his German territories, in Turin and Stupinigi when in Piedmont, and in Florence (the Pitti Palace) when in Tuscany.

Since he was not only Emperor of the French, but also King of Italy, the Royal Palace in Milan was at his disposal and he commissioned the refurbishment of a palace in Venice – though he never saw it completed. With the annexation of the Papal States, Rome became the second capital of the Empire and the Quirinal Palace (the former summer residence of the popes) was transformed into an imperial palace known as the Monte Cavallo. Its interior decoration was completed by 1813, but work on its furnishings was halted by the collapse of the Empire.

Imperial palace etiquette included a rigid codification of furnishings in the various imperial apartments and, wherever possible, arrangements in all the other palaces reproduced those at the Tuileries. These are described as follows: The imperial palace of the Tuileries is divided into grand state apartments, ordinary apartments of the Emperor and ordinary apartments of the Empress. The grand state apartments comprises a concert hall, a first drawing room, a second drawing room, a throne room, the drawing room of the Emperor and a gallery.3 The ordinary apartments of the Emperor are divided into an apartment of honour and an interior apartment; the apartment of honour is composed of a guardroom (the hall of the guards), and a first and second drawing room. The interior apartment is composed of a bedroom, a study, an office and a topographical bureau.4 The ordinary apartments of the Empress are divided into an apartment of honour and an interior apartment. The apartment of honour is composed of an antechamber, a first and second drawing room, a boudoir, a dining room and a music room. The interior apartments is composed of a bedroom, a library, a dressing room, a boudoir, a bathroom and a back room.5 The Règlement pour l’ameublement des palais impériaux (Regulations for the furnishing of the imperial palaces) of 6 Thermidor Year XIII (25 July 1805) codifies the furnishings of these various apartments:

41 .

Before the establishment of a clear etiquette, responsibility for the administration of the two palaces placed at the disposal of the First Consul (the Tuileries and Saint-Cloud) rested on the Intendant of the Imperial Household. This was Charles-Louis Pfister, quickly replaced by Duroc in November 1801. Etiquette provided, ‘The Grand Marshal of the Palace is to be responsible for the allocation of apartments and accommodation in the imperial palaces. He is to decide on their furnishings and to work via the Intendant-General to make arrangements for repair and maintenance work and any furniture that may be necessary´.7 From February 1805 to his death in July 1813, the Grand Marshal was Géraud-Christophe Michel Duroc, Duke of Friuli, previously Governor of the Palace from November 1801. For ten years he was in charge of furnishing the imperial palaces, taking his orders directly from Napoleon. Of all the grand officers of the crown, it was the Grand Marshal of the Palace who had the heaviest responsibilities and the duties that were hardest to perform. His systematic approach, tenacity

42

and capacity for hard work were admirable, especially considering that he had to combine the roles of administrator, diplomat and military officer. Napoleon – who recognised a work horse when he saw one – made him his right-hand man. The Grand Marshal worked in close cooperation with two other important figures: the Intendant-General of the Imperial Household, whose role was to sanction all the routine expenditure, and the Administrator of the Imperial Furniture, who executed his orders regarding the furnishing of the palaces. The post of Intendant-General was initially held by Charles-Pierre Claret, Count of Fleurieu, from July 1804 to July 1805, then by Count Pierre Daru (another workhorse) from July 1805 to April 1811, and finally by Jean-Baptiste Nompère de Champagny, Duke of Cadore, from that date on. There were only two Administrators of the Imperial Furniture: Etienne-Jacques Calmelet from November 1804 to February 1806, succeeded by AlexandreJean Desmazis from February 1806 to September 1815.

The Emperor’s library, Compiègne.

Réunion des Musées Nationaux-GP, Paris. Photo Daniel Arnaudet

State apartments and Their Majesties’ apartments of honour. The antechamber and the first drawing rooms are to be furnished with wide benches and wide stools, upholstered in Savonnerie tapestry, the door curtains and screens being of the same fabric. There will be no curtains. These rooms will be supplied with tables and with the number of pallet beds required for attendants.

The second drawing rooms, waiting rooms, music and gaming rooms, the drawing rooms of the princes and of Their Majesties. And with an adequate number of stools and folding chairs upholstered in tapestry or silk, the curtains, door curtains and screens being of the same fabric. To these will be added some console tables with candelabra.

Bedroom: an armchair on each side of the bed, a hairdressing chair, a couch, some folding stools, commodes, and curtains, screens and door curtains of the same fabric as the furniture.

The antechambers, first drawing rooms and vestibules are to be lit by Argand lamps and large lanterns; in the other rooms there will be chandeliers.

Mantel clocks are to be placed in the principal rooms and, most importantly, in the service areas.

There are to be dust sheets for all the furniture. These will be removed only on ceremonial occasions and when the sovereigns are in residence… As a general rule, Their Majesties’ chairs should be kept reversed in rooms they rarely enter.6

Napoleon was an exacting man who liked to micromanage every project, a tendency that made life difficult for his immediate subordinates. He oversaw every detail with meticulous care and issued precise instructions. There are endless examples. As First Consul, he was already banning the use of mahogany, broadcloth and cashmere and prescribing minimum use of gilding and paintwork; economy and simplicity were to be the watchwords in the furnishing of private living quarters: the walls were to be clad only in paper and the furniture was to be upholstered in silk from the manufactories in Lyons or elsewhere. Splendour was to be reserved exclusively for the state apartments. The Administrator of the Imperial Furniture, who knew his master’s preferences for the furniture in his private apartments, specified: ‘Cut down on the decoration: it’s for the Emperor’.8 At times the Emperor’s wishes could be almost finicky, a fact revealed, for example, by the Administrator’s orders for furnishings in 1806:

43 .

The Empress’s bedroom.

Réunion des Musées Nationaux-GP, Paris. Photo Daniel Arnaudet

‘Change the fender in the Emperor’s bedroom, which is of the feu à galerie type, which H.M. dislikes’ or again ‘Since the Grand Marshal had done me the honour of informing me that H.M. has adopted the kind of folding stools with two straight legs, I would never have employed a different design if it were not for the respect that I felt I ought to show to the manufacturers of a large number of them that I found in stock in the Furniture Depot. … You can assure H.M. that from now on all new orders for folding stools will be in accordance with his wishes’. 9

To ensure compliance, Napoleon tended to dictate his orders himself, as he did in February 1810 with regard to the embellishment of apartments for the new Empress, Marie-Louise: ‘I will allow 15,000 francs for embroidery frames, chiffonniers, writing tables, paperweights and other small items for the empress’s personal use. It is convenient to find the same designs and the same amenities of daily life everywhere’.10 In February 1800, as spouse of the head of state, Napoleon’s first wife, Josephine Bonaparte, moved into Marie Antoinette’s old apartments in

44

the Tuileries. Following works rendered necessary by the Revolution, she occupied rooms that would not be redecorated and refurnished until the major improvements ordered by Napoleon in early 1808. Her furniture was a mixed bag of second-hand pieces brought from other royal or princely residences, supplemented by a few new items ordered from the Jacob brothers (in partnership from 1796 to 1803 and succeeded by the firm of Jacob-Desmalter). There were numerous precious objects from the collections of Marie Antoinette, whose apartments at Saint-Cloud and Fontainebleau she also occupied in due course. As soon as Percier and Fontaine set about the redecoration of her apartments, Josephine demanded to be consulted. In 1806, for example, finding her bedroom at the Tuileries outmoded, she explicitly asked Fontaine to submit his designs to her. However, she had to wait until March 1808 before the Emperor gave orders for the refurbishment of the room. Josephine was there when the architects presented their plans and Fontaine noted on this occasion that the Empress ‘no longer has the same confidence in our taste that she used to have and, regarding us as old-fashioned, wishes, recommends and indeed insists that her entire interior should be in grey and gold with pretty arabesques and classical motifs in stucco’.11 He regretted that the magnificence required by the Emperor and the refinement demanded by the Empress were so ill-matched by the funds allocated to him. Ten days later, taking advantage of Napoleon’s departure for Spain, Josephine was back renewing ‘her demands concerning the decoration, the taste, the richness that should be invested in the arrangement and furnishing of her apartments’.12 On his return, the Emperor expressed satisfaction with the result but clearly nobody had taken any account of his wife’s wishes. Having been forced to obey the Emperor, Fontaine deployed infinite tact when the time came to explain himself to the Empress. In a diary entry for December 1808 he recorded, She has visited her apartment and is dissatisfied. She feels that we have not obeyed her commands and that, instead of the pretty things she asked for, we have overloaded the wood panelling and the ceilings with heavy, outmoded ornamentation. The furniture is not fine or rich enough. In short, HM is displeased. I did not attempt to justify our actions. I apologised and begged her forgiveness, sure that it was easier to appeal to her good heart than to her reason.13 The same economy prevailed at Saint-Cloud when that palace was fitted out for the use of the First Consul and his wife, who moved into it in the autumn of 1802. Since Napoleon controlled every last detail, both for the public rooms and for their private quarters, Josephine seems at times to have had very little room for manoeuvre. In 1809,

45 .

for example, when he ordered the refurbishment of the Grand Trianon, he issued detailed specifications for each item of furniture in their own quarters and left the Empress responsibility only for the other apartments. On 24 February he wrote,

So it seems that Josephine did have some hand in arrangements for the Trianon although, because of the divorce, she never saw the result.

It was the same story at Compiègne, which Napoleon ordered to be made habitable from 1807 on, entrusting the work to Berthault, Josephine’s architect at Malmaison. Josephine was never to see, still less live in, the apartments that were decorated and furnished for her there.

They were not completed until the middle of 1809, just a few months before the divorce. Nevertheless, the resulting interiors reflect her taste for harmoniously coloured and skilfully arranged soft furnishings, with fluted silks and brocaded silk gourgourans caught up in swags and fastened with rosettes.

At Fontainebleau, Josephine occupied Marie Antoinette’s apartments.

In 1805 she was given the queen’s bed and, for good measure, her bedroom was also furnished with the two commodes supplied for Marie Antoinette’s gaming room, while the walls were covered with a magnificent chenille brocade completed for the royal furniture depot in 1790. The rest of her private quarters were sumptuously furnished although, after briefly considering the possibility of a new Pompeiianstyle wall decoration, it was finally decided simply to cover the walls with rich Lyons silk. The number of vases used in her apartments is astonishing; no fewer than 40 adorned the mantelpieces, the console tables and even the bases of the secretaires! Fontaine informs us that, with

46

During the 10 years when she was at centre stage, and even after the divorce, Josephine’s influence on the interior decoration of the palaces was far from negligible. Her contemporaries recognised the perfection

Château de Versailles, Grand Trianon: Salon des Malachites (the Emperor’s salon).

Réunion des Musées Nationaux-GP, Paris. Photo Harry Bréjat

As concerns the Grand Trianon, I require it to be furnished without any expense to me whatever. Place in the room that used to be reserved for Madame [i.e. Napoleon’s mother, Letizia Bonaparte] the bed that I had last year at the Tuileries and the furniture that was in my private salon, the pieces that were in the salon of the Aides de Camp, and the pieces that were downstairs in the Empress’s apartments.

Give me the bed I had before this one and which I believe was used by the Pope. The palace has wood panelling everywhere, so we need plenty of pictures. Get Monsieur Denon to draw up a plan for the decoration of the gallery. I have some artworks at Villiers that could go there. With these resources and the 400,000 francs, it should be possible to furnish the two palaces for me. Get plans drawn up for each apartment and submit them to the Empress.14

regard to these private quarters, as much account as possible was taken of her preferences: ‘as has been suggested, we could leave unresolved the question of the furnishing of the private apartments of H.M. the Empress, especially since we are unsure of her intentions and therefore risk doing things that may displease her’.15

of her taste and, in her own living quarters, she was able to use it to temper the severity and occasional rigidity of the Empire’s official style.

By the end of his reign, the Emperor had more than 40 residences at his disposal throughout Europe. His brother, King Louis of Holland, followed his example. Not content with the three former palaces of the House of Orange – the Binnenhof in The Hague, Soestdijk in the centre of the country (a favourite country retreat of the House of Nassau which was by this time an unhealthy and cheerless abode where the King retired to nurse his depression) and Huis ten Bosch in

47 .

Louis tried to impose Parisian etiquette on his court in Holland. His library has been found to include a copy of Etiquette du Palais Impérial pour l’année 1806 (‘Etiquette of the Imperial Palace for the Year 1806’) entirely annotated in his hand and modified for the Kingdom of Holland, the word ‘imperial’ being systematically crossed out and replaced by ‘royal’. This etiquette applied only to state residences and not to private ones. The version for Holland was published in Amsterdam in 1808 under the title Étiquette of the Palais Royal. The palace organisation described in it is identical to that of the imperial Household: there

48

Étiquette du Palais Impérial, annotated.

Royal Archives, The Hague

Malmaison: Salle du conseil.

Réunion des Musées Nationaux-GP, Paris. Photo Daniel Arnaudet

the woods outside The Hague (where he lived only in 1806 and 1807, when it was known as the ‘Palais Royal du Bois’) – he also acquired other residences. These included Het Loo (the only truly royal palace capable of accommodating the Court), a cluster of houses in Utrecht that never really deserved to be called a palace, and the Pavillion Welgelegen in Haarlem. However, it was in Amsterdam – which was to become his capital in 1808 – that he created a truly sumptuous palace, redecorating and refurnishing the whole of the former Town Hall at great expense.

is a Grand Marshal of the Palace with the same responsibilities as his Parisian counterpart (at first Baron de Broc and subsequently Baron Roest d’Alkemade) and a Grand Master of the Royal Household (M. de Sénégra, who went on to take the title of Intendant-General, a post occupied initially by Baron Van Lamsweerde and then by M. Twent). By the end of 1810, a substantial sum had been disbursed: 2,242,151.10 francs, of which 982,151.10 francs were spent on the Amsterdam Palace alone and a total of 1,260,000 francs on Het Loo, Utrecht, Soestdijk and the Pavillion Welgelegen in Haarlem. An inventory for Het Loo, drawn up in 1810, lists around 2,000 pieces of furniture, of which almost 400 still survive.

Like Napoleon, Louis sought to control every last detail, as witnessed this note from the King: ‘The table for the Council of State is to be rectangular, one of the short sides to be occupied by me and the other three sides by the ministers, for whom there will be two small tables at each side. … All the tables are to be covered with baize with a gold border; the baize on my table is to have a gold fringe’.16 And, again like Napoleon in France, he organised exhibitions of industrial products, held in Utrecht and designed to benefit the Dutch economy.

Just as in France, a system of palace inventories was introduced, with pieces of furniture being branded with a letter code; the inventory for Amsterdam, drawn up in 1809, uses the abbreviation AP for Amsterdam Palace, a room number and an item number. The descriptions of the items mention the colour of upholstery fabrics. Apart from some furniture made by Jacob-Desmalter and imported from France, he placed most of his orders with Dutch craftsmen. The most important of these were Joseph Cuel, an upholsterer of French origin who settled in Amsterdam in 1792, and Carel Breytspraak. Others were based in The Hague, like chair-maker Albert Eeltjes, Matthys Horrix or Eduard Muller, a cabinet-maker and wood carver who produced console tables. The upholsterers were all Dutch and all the light fittings were manufactured in Holland. The craftsmen

49 .

took their designs from Pierre de La Mésangère’s seminal Collection de meubles et objets de goût. Many of the items that Louis ordered still survive in collections in the Netherlands, although Napoleon took a number of them to furnish his palaces in Antwerp and Mainz, much to the annoyance of the Dutch.

Bernard Chevallier

Mark “AP”.

House of Orange-Nassau Historic Collections Trust, The Hague. Photo Tom Haartsen

Cultural Heritage Curator and former Director of the Malmaison Museum

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

The Emperor addressing members of the Institut de France, 5 March 1808.

Senatus-consulta of 28 Floréal, Year XII (18 May 1804), article 16. Étiquette du Palais Impérial, Paris, 1806, part II, chapter 1, p. 84. Étiquette du Palais Impérial, Paris, 1806, part II, chapter II, pp. 86–87. Étiquette du Palais Impérial, Paris, 1806, part II, chapter III, pp. 89– 90.

Archives Nationales, Paris, Archives Napoleon, 400 AP 4. Étiquette du Palais Impérial, Paris, 1806, part 1, chapter II, article 1, p. 12.

Quoted in H. Lefuel, François-Honoré-Georges Jacob-Desmalter, Paris, 1923, p. 78.

Quoted in C. Samoyault-Verlet, ‘Le remeublement de Fontainebleau sous l’Empire’, Souvenir Napoleonien, no. 277, September 1974, p. 8.

50

10 Archives Nationales, Paris, series O2, 548, letterfrom Daru to Desmazis, 19 February 1810, containing a missive from Napoleon dated 18 February 1810.

11 P.-F.-L. Fontaine, Journal, vol. 1, Paris, 1987, p.

204 (23 March 1808).

12 P.-F.-L. Fontaine, Journal, vol. 1, Paris, 1987, p.

208 (3 April 1808).

13 P.-F.-L. Fontaine, Journal, vol. 1, Paris, 1987, p.

218 (4 December 1808).

14 Archives Nationales, Paris, series O2, letter from Napoleon to Daru, 24 February 1809.

15 Quoted in Samoyault-Verlet (1974), p. 8.

16 Quoted in T. H. Lunsingh Scheurleer, ‘De inrichting van het koninklijk paleis te Amsterdam onder Lodewijk Napoleon’, Genootschap voor Napoleontische Studiën I, June 1953, no. 4, p. 6.

François-Honoré-Georges Jacob-Desmalter (1770–1841), Louis Napoleon’s bed, 1805–1808 Amsterdam Royal Palace Foundation. Photo Qiu Yang

Renske Cohen Tervaert & Aagje Gosliga

A Roya l T r a n sfo r m at i o n T h e Em p i r e S t y le at t h e Roya l Pa l ac e i n A m s t e rda m ‘Welcome,

esteemed Sovereign, to the Eighth Wonder of the World!

May God, who gave you to unite virtue with power, Grant you contentment within these walls.’1 It is doubtful whether Louis Napoleon’s arrival in Amsterdam on 20 April 1808 was indeed a joyous occasion. Just two months earlier, in February, the city council had been obliged to vacate the building in Dam Square and move their offices to the Prinsenhof. Louis informed them that he would only be occupying the premises for a limited period, as he was planning to build a new residence in the Plantage. A week after his arrival he announced his intention to put the idea before Parliament.2 The project was postponed, however, as the economy of his kingdom was weak and the treasury all but depleted.

Louis instructed his architects to convert the Town Hall for use as a temporary residence and to ensure that it could be restored to its original state within eight days. With this in mind, they set out to enhance the interior, making improvements that were not intended to be permanent. The costs – which were substantial – were paid by the State.

All told, the project amounted to 1,040,342 guilders, about seven million euros by today’s standards.3

Carel Breytspraak (1769–1810), Chairs for the Banqueting Room, 1808.

Based on a design in Meubles et Objets de goût by Pierre de La Mésangère Amsterdam Royal Palace Foundation. Foto Qiu Yang

53 .

54

Julien-Léopold Boilly (1761–1845), Portrait of Jean-Thomas Thibault (1757–1826).

Litho. Rijksmuseum Print Room, Amsterdam

The Citizens’ Hall, in C.T.J.L. Rieber, Het Koninklijk Paleis te Amsterdam.

Leiden/Haarlem 1902

Structural alterations A number of structural alterations were required in order to make the Town Hall habitable.4 Though the plans look daunting on paper, no major changes were made to the building itself. The offices on the various floors were adapted to suit their new functions. As we have seen in the preceding articles by Frans Grijzenhout and Bernard Chevallier, the handbook Étiquette, which detailed the protocol for every aspect of court life in France, set the standard for Louis’s residences in the Netherlands as well. It stipulated how those rows of adjacent rooms were to be used: which were to serve as royal apartments and which as kitchens, a court chapel or accommodation for the palace guard and Royal Household.5 In French palaces, the private suites were customarily located on the first floor and the reception rooms on the ground floor, opening onto the gardens. This was not the case in Amsterdam, however, as the building has neither a garden nor an outdoor court. Instead, the salons were situated on the first floor along with the royal apartments.

To make space for all the salons that were required, wooden partitions were installed in the galleries leading off the Citizens’ Hall to form a number of smaller rooms.

The heating system was improved to make the salons more comfortable and the draughty seventeenth-century cross-windows were replaced by two, four or six-paned sash windows, which were covered with lace curtains to keep out the chill.6 The effect on the building’s exterior was dramatic. Both inside and out, the Town Hall was starting to look like a palace. Even more changes were made to the original design by architect Jacob van Campen (1596–1657): a balcony was constructed on the facade overlooking Dam Square, the arches at street level on the same side of the building were filled in, and two new entrances were created, one on the side facing today’s Paleisstraat and the other in Mozes en Aäronstraat.7 The entrance in Paleisstraat gave access to the Exchange Bank, the only municipal institution that continued to operate from the palace.

55 .

A new look

All activity on the site was interrupted briefly on 20 April, when Louis Napoleon paid a visit to his new palace. Work was still in progress and the interior was not quite ready, but the King was able to receive his first guests in sufficiently impressive surroundings. Details in the décor that were not to his liking were altered after his departure. On the same occasion, on 21 April, Louis promulgated his first official decree in Amsterdam: a Royal Museum was to be established on the fourth floor, in the offices formerly used by the War Council.8 Work on the museum began in July 1808 and ended in August. The museum opened its doors in September of that year.

The palace was finally completed in 1809. The last rooms to be decorated were the suites for the Queen and her son.9 Those that were required immediately had been given priority. Queen Hortense and Crown Prince Napoleon Louis only arrived at the palace in 1810. They departed after a brief visit, never to return.

Two architects were engaged to supervise the conversion of the Town Hall into a palace. Like his siblings, King Louis appointed a French court architect, Jean-Thomas Thibault (1757–1826), who was responsible for designing and managing any construction work on the King’s residences. Thibault possessed excellent credentials from France. Along with his friends Charles Percier (1764–1838) and Pierre François Léonard Fontaine (1762–1853), he had been instrumental in developing the Empire style. He had also been involved in designing the Bonapartes’ residences. Under Fontaine’s supervision, Thibault had laid out the gardens of Malmaison for Napoleon’s sister, Princess Caroline, and designed the interiors of the Elysée and Neuilly. On top of that, he had worked on Louis’s country estate at Saint-Leu in 1804 and his Paris residence in Rue Cerutti. As an authority on the imperial court style, Thibault was eminently suited to serve as the King’s architect in Holland.10 On 10 December 1807 he was appointed manager of Louis’s residences, with ultimate responsibility for their décor. He designed furniture as well: the bookcases in the library are believed to be from his hand (p.33).

On 25 December 1807 architect Bartholomeus Willem Hendrik Ziesenis (1768–1820) was appointed specifically to work in the Amsterdam palace. He supervised the manufacture of furniture according to Thibault’s specifications and produced designs of his own.11 Hence, the cabinet-makers and suppliers engaged by the court worked to designs produced by the architects under Thibault’s supervision. In view of the magnitude of the Amsterdam project and the short time available to complete it, the King appointed an overseer by the name of P.J. Huybrechts.12

Fragment of wall covering from the king’s dining room.

Office of the Comptroller of the Royal Palaces, The Hague

the architects

Frans Grijzenhout’s article examines one of the most important implications of the Town Hall project: the transformation of a public building into a private residence for the king.13 It was one thing to convert offices into salons and bedrooms, but quite another, just as important, to erase the now inappropriate symbolism of its seventeenth-century decoration programme. The large paintings above the fireplaces, by artists like Govert Flinck (1615–1660) and Ferdinand Bol (1616– 1680), and the sculptures and carvings by the Flemish Artus Quellinus (1609–1668) alluded to the values and ideals of the old civic administration. They had to be concealed, removed or incorporated into the imagery of the new court, which proclaimed and promoted the supremacy of the monarchy. Yet, one thing remained unchanged: whatever the regime, the building was still the centre of power.

As we have seen, the new palace was to serve as a showcase for the King’s wealth and prestige, but it also had to be completed in a short time and the alterations had to be reversible. In these circumstances, the architects decided to achieve the transformation predominantly by using luxurious furnishings and accessories – countless metres of exquisite fabrics, magnificent chandeliers and luxurious floor coverings. ‘All of it radiates splendour and majestic grandeur, coupled with impeccable cleanliness, which is most unusual at court, yet a trait inherent in the Dutch nation.’ These words appear in a description of the palace published by Pieter Gerardus Witsen Geysbeek (1744–1833) in 1809.14

56

57 .

Tapissiers

Fragment of a sample of wall covering for the Grand Salon of Het Loo Palace.

National Archives, The Hague

Much of the work involved furnishing the new rooms with wall coverings, upholstered seating, carpets and curtains. Although it saved time as compared to rebuilding, it was certainly not cheap. The cost of soft furnishings for the Grand Salon and the Throne Room alone amounted to 48,000 guilders, one tenth of the total expenditure. The disbursements prompted the Grand Master of the Royal Household to remark that ‘anyone in Holland who wanted to get rich should become an apothecary or a tapissier’.15

The nineteenth-century tapissier was a wallpaperer and upholsterer but, unlike his modern counterpart, he was also an interior decorator. From 1804 onwards, the tapissier of Louis Napoleon’s residences was Baptiste Charpentier. As valet de chambre tapissier to the King, Charpentier acquired a new function in Holland, where he was also responsible for designing furniture for the new palace, selecting fabrics and recommending manufacturers.16 Hence, his duties overlapped those of the architects. In practice, he conducted negotiations between the architects and their suppliers.

58

Once the rooms had been assigned their functions they were ready to be furnished and decorated. Some equipment was brought from other palaces, such as Utrecht, Huis ten Bosch and Soestdijk, but most was bought new. Tapissiers Weenink and Kam prepared all the walls by applying a base layer of lining paper on which to paste the wallpaper or fabric. The ceilings were covered with cloth.17

They generally used one of two kinds of wall coverings: textile tentures or papiers de tapisserie, and a variety of fabrics in the state rooms and official reception rooms: brocade, satin, heavy silk gros de Tours, striped silk gourgouran, velvet, moiré and damask, and gold and silver braid. These were made into curtains and wall coverings or used as upholstery. The designs on the furniture and wall coverings of each room were coordinated to achieve unity.

Fabrics and carpets radically altered the appearance of the rooms and certainly made them more comfortable. Curtains now framed windows that had previously been bare. Those in the main rooms were silk, set off by velvet draped from gilt rods; those in the staff rooms were made of cotton. The carpets came from tapissiers Weenink in The Hague and Moorman and Van Oosthuizen in Amsterdam. The state rooms were fitted with luxurious tapis moquette. The most expensive carpet was that in the Grand Salon, which cost 6,056.10 francs.

The walls and ceilings of the less formal salons were generally papered. The architects chose richly patterned paper, which they used for decorative borders as well. Some repeated the floral or leaf designs of the fabrics, others were printed to resemble drapes, lace or moiré.

Designs influenced by the fashionable Empire style featured classical motifs, such as spears, helmets, swords, garlands and griffins. The more luxurious papers were made in anything up to eighty stages; the motifs and colours were applied with different blocks.

The textiles used in the restoration and renovation of the palace in 2005–2009 have helped to create a unity between the seventeenthcentury interior and the nineteenth-century furniture.18 The wall coverings and the curtains form part of the seventeenth-century interior and are accordingly based on designs from that period, whereas the new carpets belong to the furnishings and are therefore decorated with early nineteenth-century designs copied from fragments of carpets that were found in the palace. The aim was not to reproduce the original or the later Empire décor but to achieve a look that was both contemporary and in keeping with the history of the building.

The new carpets are in fact reconstructions of the originals from Tournai. One type has a bold pattern and intricately decorated borders, the other a fine block pattern. All the textiles are in related colours. The apartments facing Dam Square are decorated in blue, those at the back of the building in yellow, and the salons and the apartments between them in red.

59 .

denying Britain trading access to European ports. Mahogany became scarce as a result and increasing use was made of veneer. The trend in furniture design had shifted towards cleaner lines and more solid forms. Furniture was decorated mainly with fired-gilt appliqués and tables were completed with marble tops.

Furniture

orders for the benefit of the craftsmen have unfortunately been lost.

For new ideas the architects consulted sources like the Collection de Meubles et Objets de goût, a series of prints first published by Pierre de La Mésangère in 1802. Prints were an inexpensive and effective way to keep up with the latest fashions. The designs for the chairs in the Banqueting Hall and the fauteuils in the King’s salon were copied directly from De La Mesangère (p.52).

Mahogany was the preferred wood for furniture. Admired for its flame pattern, it had come into vogue in the 1780s. It was a costly material imported from Cuba and Santo Domingo. However, in 1806, Napoleon introduced his Continental System, a blockade aimed at

60

Chandeliers and candelabra of the Louis Napoleon period.

Government Buildings Agency, The Hague. Photos Wim Ruigrok

Empire draperies, in Pierre de La Mésangère (1761–1831) Collection de Meubles et Objets de goût, Paris, c. 1802–1807, no. 237.

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1930

For Louis’s arrival in Holland in 1806, Intendant-General Baron De Sénégra ordered furniture and fabrics from Boulard and JacobDesmalter, the most prestigious firms in Paris. However, that was not what the King had wanted. He was committed to supporting local business and industry and in August of that year instructed the Intendant-General ‘not to purchase furnishings for the palace exclusively from Paris’ as it was his ‘express wish to use the services of merchants in The Hague or at least Holland as far as possible’.19

Commissions given to cabinet-makers were recorded in a Livre de commandes. The architect’s drawings that originally accompanied these

suppliers The goods and services required for the redecoration of the Town Hall were obtained from Dutch firms as far as possible. By early 1808, orders had already been placed with the chair manufacturer Albert Eeltjes (1751–1836), the cabinet-maker Eduard Muller (1760–1830) and tapissier Johannes Kam Jr (c. 1774–1819), all of The Hague, along with Lambertus Lambotte (c. 1762–1840) of Utrecht. At this stage, Amsterdam names began to appear on the list. Kam went into partnership with tapissier Étienne Weenink (c. 1752–1825). Judging by the accounts, however, the

61 .

palace’s principal tapissier was French-born Joseph Cuel (1763–1846), who had opened a workshop in Nieuwendijk in 1798. The wall coverings came from Jean George Berger in Kalverstraat and most of the fabrics from Van der Meulen. Work was also commissioned from the prominent cabinet-maker, Carel Breytspraak (1769–1810), and on one occasion from Goller. Many other artisans and craftsmen produced furnishings or provided maintenance and cleaning services.20

hard to come by. But the mission was accomplished and six of the original eight chandeliers, made of iron, tin and crystal, can still be seen in the Citizens’ Hall. They were originally illuminated by twelve oil lamps mounted on the rings. The renowned Parisian bronze artist Antoine André Ravrio (1759–1814) had applied for the commission, quoting 34,500 guilders for six bronze chandeliers or 21,500 guilders for six gilt chandeliers. Those that were finally bought, for 5,000 guilders in all, were a bargain.22 Yet as simple and economical as they were – they were made with relatively few crystal drops – the chandeliers and

Lighting Lighting was a striking feature of the décor of the Amsterdam palace and indeed all Louis Napoleon’s residences. Chandeliers, mostly made of gilt-bronze with crystal drops, hung in each room on the main floor.

They were bought from P. Reeder & Son and Ciovino & Truffino Bros.

Made in France, they were of outstanding quality and extremely costly.

An eight-light chandelier sold for 2,750 guilders or more.21

Finding affordable, preferably locally produced chandeliers for the Grand Salon was the biggest challenge of all. A chandelier measuring three metres in height with a diameter of almost two metres was

62

Lighting in the Citizens’ Hall.

Government Buildings Agency, The Hague. Photos Wim Ruigrok

Quinquet lamp made by the firm Lancelot.

Print, Bibliothèque Marmottan, Paris

Oil lamp from a chandelier in the Grand Salon, made by Hendrik Bosch.

Government Buildings Agency, The Hague. Photo Wim Ruigrok

eighteen matching girandoles lent an aura of grandeur to the palace’s principal reception hall.

Candelabras, candleholders and ordinary candlesticks were also used to illuminate the rooms. Being smaller, they could be moved from one room to another, as required. They were often placed in front of a mirror for greater effect. Besides being decorative, the crystal ornaments also reflected light. The glow of candlelight on bronze, satin, silk and burnished mahogany must have been truly impressive.

Although candles were still the main source of light in the early nineteenth century, they were rapidly being overtaken by oil lamps.

63 .

The Argand lamp, invented in 1783, was particularly effective.23 It is also known as a Quinquet lamp, after Antoine-Arnoult Quinquet (1745–1803), a pharmacist who promoted it in France. All the chandeliers and light fittings which are now in the palace have halogen candle bulbs.

The Citizens’ Hall.

Amsterdam Royal Palace Foundation. Photo Erik and Petra Hesmerg

A French interior

64

The former civic administration’s understated interior had been replaced by a splendour never before seen in the Netherlands. According to the memoirs of a French courtier, ‘nothing that belonged to the previous government was of any use in creating a royal court. The restraint of the republican regime needed to be replaced not by extravagance exactly, but at least some measure of opulence, something a little more sophisticated.’24 The French contribution added splendour to the building without compromising its Dutch character. As Witsen Geysbeek observed, ‘The Town Hall of Amsterdam attracted the admiration of all Europe’, but then so did the Royal Palace for its ‘simple but beautiful décor in general and the tasteful appointment of its rooms in particular’.25 In spite of it all, Baron d’Alphonse (1756– 1821), Intendant for the Interior, remarked in a letter of 1813 that the rooms, though attractive, were rather dismal and cheerless. Be that as it may, the Grand Salon, the former Citizens’ Hall, remained one of the most beautiful halls in Europe.26

From surviving letters, tenders and invoices, and the French system of branding each piece of furniture with a code identifying the room to which it belonged, we have a fair idea of what the principal rooms must have looked like between 1808 and 1811. A few of them are described in the following paragraphs.

The Grand Salon The Town Hall’s celebrated Citizens’ Hall was reincarnated as Louis Napoleon’s Grand Salon. This is where important ceremonies and festivities were held during his brief stay at the palace, a notable example being Louis’s inauguration of the chivalric Order of the Union.27 A decoration scheme for the room was proposed in February 1808.

In the words of the Intendant, ‘The curtains and drapes around the windows of the large reception room – the fabrics as well as the trimmings and fringes, etc. – are more beautiful and more luxurious than one can imagine.’28 The ‘curtains and drapes … etcetera’ were supplied by Joseph Cuel.

As we see from the Citizens’ Hall, the Empire style was eminently suited to the building’s classicist architecture. The windows were

65 .

tains. A row of flags and banners displayed on either side of the sculpture of Atlas added a solemn touch. These were Dutch trophies taken in combat, mostly during the Eighty Years War against Spain, which in 1806 were removed from the Binnenhof in The Hague and brought to the Amsterdam palace. The huge chandeliers discussed above illuminated the hall. The marble floor and its inlaid maps of the world disappeared under a vast carpet. Thirty-six sofas and hundreds of tabourets lined the walls to provide seating for members of the court and their guests. More than 300 metres of French linen went into the making of dust covers to protect the furniture when the King was not in residence.29 In the words of a French courtier, the hall was ‘vraiment un coup d’oeil majestueux’, truly a feast for the eyes.30

66

The Throne Room in 1808.

Digital reconstruction by Studio Vanwees The Magistrates’ Chamber with chandeliers dating from the reign of King William III. Government Buildings Agency, The Hague. Photo Wim Ruigrok

Unknown artist, The Grand Salon. Aquatint, c. 1810.

Published by E. Maaskamp, Amsterdam. Amsterdam City Archives

decorated with quantities of white silk finished with yellow and red tassels and borders. Red drapes with a crown in the centre hung from gilt rods. Mirrors gleamed on the walls between the pilasters along the breadth of the room, flanked by curtains and drapes to maintain the rhythm of the windows. The upper windows were framed by blue cur-

67 .

The salons Several rooms were used for smaller gatherings. They included the Throne Room, the Grand Salon, the Ambassadors’ Salon and the billiard room. They were all furnished in the same manner but each in a different colour scheme, such as yellow and lilac, yellow and blue, orange and green, or yellow and red.34 Each contained a suite of twelve chairs and fourteen or sixteen fauteuils, and some had sofas as well.

Most of the furnishings for these salons came from Cuel’s workshop.

An Allegory of the Arts by the Amsterdam painter Jurriaan Andriessen

68

Chamber of the Commissioners of Petty Affairs.

Above the fireplace, Allegory of the Arts by Jurriaan Andriessen (1742–1819).

Government Buildings Agency, The Hague. Photo Wim Ruigrok

A small passage led from the Grand Salon to the Throne Room, the former Magistrates’ Chamber and the last room in the state apartment.

After the Citizens’ Hall, it was the largest room in the palace and therefore the most suitable place for the throne. It was initially designated a music room and Joseph Cuel had decorated it in pale ochre and green, which he considered suitable for that purpose. However, the colour scheme was not to the King’s liking, so the soft furnishings were removed and used for the Queen’s bedroom and the gallery next to the chapel.31 Cuel redecorated what had instead become the Throne Room with sumptuous fabrics.

For the windows, he chose double-layered curtains in crimson satin and matching velvet drapes attached to gilt rods with the royal crown and the arms of the eleven provinces of Holland in the centre. Velvet and satin drapes in the same colour hung from gilt rods over the architrave dividing the split-level room. The throne and its gilt footstool were covered with a gold-trimmed crimson cloth, but we have little idea of what it looked like. King William I had the throne dismantled and no picture of it exists. In any event, it stood on a dais with steps covered in green fabric.

When the King was seated, his pages could sit on the steps. The chamberlain was responsible for ensuring that the furniture required in the Throne Room was in place. There were fauteuils for the Queen and the Crown Prince, the only members of the court who generally remained seated throughout the ceremony, and tabourets for the ladies.32

The fauteuils, supplied by Cuel, were gilt with red velvet upholstery. They were the only items of gilt furniture in the palace other than the King’s chair in the State Council Room, which was made by Eeltjes and Weenink.33 The Throne Room retained its function up to the reign of Queen Wilhelmina (1898–1948). It is now used for lectures and concerts.

Supplied by Joseph Cuel, (1763–1846), Tabouret for the Grand Salon, 1808.

Office of the Comptroller of the Royal Palaces, The Hague. Photo Tom Haartsen

The Throne Room

(1742–1819) and his son Christiaan (1775–1846) hung above the fireplace in the Ambassadors’ Salon. The artists had presented it to the King upon his arrival in the city in the hope of securing future commissions. The painting was replaced by a stucco relief a short time later and reinstated after the 2005–2009 restoration.

The salons were used for intimate social gatherings and for games like billiards, carambole, card games, tric trac, quadrille and bouillotte. Occasions of this kind were a regular part of court life, as we can infer from a description by Gijsbert Karel van Hogendorp (1762– 1834) of the festivities to celebrate the founding the Order of the Union. He writes, ‘The ladies were escorted to the galleries for the game; the King played elsewhere, in a room which contained two

69 .

70

his own apartment. His furniture, by Cuel, was upholstered in red and yellow and featured gilt lion’s heads and feet (p.17).40 The lion motif was repeated in the firedogs and also the console table, the only one of its kind by Breytspraak in the Amsterdam palace.

The dining rooms

Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres (1780–1867), Portrait of Napoleon as First Consul.

Oil on canvas, 1803/4. Collection Musée des Beaux-Arts de Liège

more tables’.35 A large mahogany billiard table stood in the centre of the billiard room; the remaining salons were equipped with folding game tables.36

The King and Queen each had a private apartment in accordance with the rules of court etiquette. They were located in opposite corners of the building. For his private salon, Louis chose the former Burgomasters’ Cabinet, the stateliest room after the Grand Salon (Citizens’ Hall) and the Throne Room (Magistrates’ Chamber), which had large paintings by Ferdinand Bol and Govert Flinck above the fireplaces. It was redecorated for the King in green with cream and white accents.37 Portraits of his mother and his second son Napoleon-Louis were hung on the walls along with two drawings, one depicting SaintLeu, the country estate in France to which Louis was deeply attached, the other, a Battle near the Pyramids. The furniture came from Eeltjes and consisted of a sofa, sixteen fauteuils and twelve chairs with bracket-shaped front legs and curved armrests with ornamental rosettes. A similar chair can be seen in a portrait of Napoleon. There were also two console tables by Muller between the windows, a round table by Breytspraak with a base shaped like an altar, and a piano by Meincke and Pieter Meyer of Amsterdam.38 The paintings by Flinck and Bol, respectively portraying the Roman consuls Marcus Curius Dentatus and Fabritius, symbolized integrity and courage, while the image depicted on the clock, The Oath of the Horatii, alluded to valour and patriotism, two of the most admired virtues in the ancient Roman Republic.

The ideals these objects endorsed would certainly have appealed to the King of Holland.

Queen Hortense’s rooms were diagonally opposite her husband’s, in the furthest corner of the building, reflecting the unhappy state of the couple’s marriage. Hortense wrote, ‘My salon was once a courtroom in which criminals were brought to justice. It had a frieze of death’s heads in black and white marble, an admired piece of sculpture which no one was prepared to destroy. The corridors were gloomy; my rooms faced onto the church; the air was foul and the suffocating sulphurous vapours rising from the canal came wafting through my windows.’39 A meagre budget of 25,000 guilders was allocated for the redecoration of her rooms. It was just sufficient to cover the cost of a few chairs, some blue and orange sofas and bergères with gilt ornaments in the form of women’s faces, made by Joseph Cuel. Whatever else was required came from other rooms in the palace. A bronze clock depicting the myth of Antigone, the daughter who remained faithful to Oedipus after he had murdered his father, had originally been intended for the Crown Prince’s apartment. Like Antigone, the Prince was expected to exercise filial loyalty even though he did not live under his father’s roof.

The Crown Prince, the second son of Louis and Hortense, had

The custom of reserving a room exclusively for dining dates from the second half of the eighteenth century.41 The dining room was one of the most important rooms in the courts of Napoleon Bonaparte. Étiquette devotes a complete chapter to seating arrangements, table settings and other rituals. Louis hosted formal dinners in the Banqueting Hall but also had a smaller dining room in his private apartment. The Queen, the Crown Prince, the Grand Marshal and the Adjutant also had their own dining rooms.

The Banqueting Hall occupied the north gallery. It contained one hundred chairs by Breytspraak, inlaid with ebony and upholstered in scarlet velvet (p.52). There was a blue carpet on the floor and net curtains and blue taffeta drapes at the windows. Mirrors hung in the three blind alcoves opposite the windows to reflect the light of the three chandeliers. The Banqueting Hall was more modestly furnished than the private dining rooms: according to the inventory, it contained only one other piece of furniture, a games table, also by Breytspraak.

The room was probably used infrequently. When required, extending tables were brought in from the King’s dining room nearby. Witsen Geysbeek noted that, ‘diners en grand couvert’, banquets for large companies, were generally held in the Grand Salon.42 On those occasions, the King’s table stood on a dais with a canopy above. At less

71 .

Cuel decorated most of the dining rooms and used paper to cover the walls because it was less susceptible to odours than fabric. He chose pale yellow with green flowers and a velvet border for the Queen’s dining room and green for most of the others. Breytspraak produced extending tables of different sizes for all the dining rooms.

Food was served from the palace’s kitchen in the southwest corner of the ground floor. Housed in several rooms close to it, each with its own staff, was a wine cellar, a rotisserie, a pastry bakery and a storeroom for the silver.

The north gallery used as a banqueting room, c. 1900. The chairs by Breytspraak were still in their original place.

Published in C.T.J.L Rieber, Het Koninklijk Paleis te Amsterdam, Leiden/Haarlem 1902

The bedrooms

formal dinners in the royal apartments the King and Queen sat in fauteuils and their guests on chairs. When the couple received guests in Hortense’s apartment the gentlemen were expected to remain standing until the King invited them to take their seats.43

72

In accordance with the convention in France, the King and Queen had separate bedrooms. As we have seen, their apartments were located in diagonally opposite corners of the first floor. The King occupied the room that had formerly been the office of the treasurers, and the Queen that of the accountants.

The furniture in the King’s bedroom came from Hortense’s bedroom in the couple’s residence in The Hague. It consisted of a bed, two bergères, six fauteuils, four chairs, two tête-à-tête sofas, two footstools, a commode, a fire screen and a ‘somno’, a bedside cupboard that was used to store a chamber pot. The bed now stands in the Insurance Chamber and some of the chairs are in the Council Chamber. They are the only items of furniture that bear the imprint of Jacob-Desmalter and are therefore the only pieces that can be firmly attributed to him (p.18). Then, as now, Jacob-Desmalter enjoyed a high reputation. As one of his contemporaries remarked, ‘Nowhere in this country is there anyone capable of producing furniture as beautiful as this.’44

The most striking piece in the King’s bedroom was the boatshaped bed known as a lit en bateau (p.51). It could stand lit de bout, with only the headboard against the wall or, like the King’s, alongside the wall in the lit de travers or lit de milieu manner. The King’s bed stood on a low platform with a couple of steps leading up to it and was covered with a tiger-striped cloth. The room was decorated predominantly in yellow, like all the royal bedrooms. The wall covering was brought from The Hague. The furniture was upholstered in yellow satin and the soft furnishings were chosen to match. Unfortunately, nothing remains of any of these fabrics. All that was required to complete the room was a canopy for the four-poster bed. Muller provided the solution. He made a canopy supported by two pilasters on the wall behind the bed and crowned with a pediment to match the backs of the chairs. The canopy was completed with curtains and drapes.

Hortense chose to sleep in her iron travelling bed rather than

73 .

the mahogany bed or the chaise longue that stood in her room. The chaise longue came from Cuel’s workshop along with eight fauteuils, two bergères, a footstool, six chairs and two bedside cupboards, one of which was rectangular and housed a bourdalou, or chamber pot.

The cupboards were beautifully embellished with gilt-bronze poppies, flaming torches and other motifs. The room also contained a cheval mirror, known as a Psyché in French. These standing full-length mirrors, a new and popular invention at the time, are now considered typical of the Empire period.

jacob-desmalter & cie The acclaimed Jacob-Desmalter & Cie were cabinet-makers to Emperor Napoleon and his family. The business was established in 1763, when Georges Jacob (1739–1814) opened a workshop in Paris specializing in seat furniture. Jacob catered to a large, wealthy clientele, which included Marie-Antoinette. In the late 1790s he started designing furniture in the fashionable Neoclassicist style for the painter Jacques Louis David. His friendship with David saved him from the guillotine, a fate to which most of his patrons succumbed. After retiring in 1796, Jacob was succeeded by his sons George Jacob II and François-Honoré-Georges Jacob (who called himself Jacob-Desmalter). Throughout the years of political upheaval Jacob Frères, as the firm was then known, remained one of the principal suppliers of furniture to the elite. They are known in particular for their suites for Juliette Récamier. After the death of Georges Jacob II in October 1803, the firm continued to operate as Jacob-Desmalter & Cie.

Jacob-Desmalter employed hundreds of craftsmen working across a wide range of occupations, from turners to upholsterers to bronze artists. As a result, they were able to complete every stage of the production process. The situation was different in Holland, where workshops were far smaller – Breytspraak, for example, employed a staff of ten.

The effects of the old guild system were still evident and occupations were defined more narrowly. For example, Eeltjes did not upholster his chairs himself but subcontracted the work to Weenink and Kam.

In spite of Louis’s instructions to support local suppliers, the Intendant-General ordered several chairs and two beds for the royal apartments from Jacob-Desmalter in the early months of the King’s reign (p.18). Jacob-Desmalter’s furniture was also available to the public through Cuel.

74

Bathrooms Louis Napoleon had bathrooms installed in several of his residences, including Het Loo Palace and the palace in Amsterdam.45 He used these amenities frequently as he suffered from rheumatism and sought relief from what he believed to be the healing properties of water.

Most bathrooms had a separate dressing room, including the one in Amsterdam. Here, both rooms were carpeted and fitted with red and green curtains which remained permanently drawn. There were also a couple of mahogany chairs, a guéridon, a mirror and a clock.46 The bathtub, according to the specifications, was to be made from ‘a fine zinc-lined copper, of such contours and proportions as will accommodate the King in comfort.’47 An iron stove, a copper cauldron and a lead tank with a capacity ‘three times greater than that of the bath’ stood in the room next door. Water was supplied by means of pipes running through the wall.

The State Council Room The King took a keen interest in the decoration of the palace, not least as regards the conference room for his advisory body, the State Council. He gave Intendant Van Lamsweerde detailed instructions on this matter. The State Council was assigned the room that had previously been used by the advisors to the city government. It contained nine oak tables which were arranged in the shape of a horseshoe and covered with green cloths trimmed with gold braid.48 The King’s table, at the head, was covered with a gold-fringed scarlet cloth. The thirty-eight councillors occupied seats upholstered in black velvet, while the King presided over meetings from a gilt chair. Eduard Muller supplied three console tables, Jansen the conference tables and Cuel the chairs. The tablecloths came from Weenink, who was also responsible for the upholstery.49 The State Council Room doubled as a music room.

Furniture that was not required when concerts were held was stored in a repository next to the Throne Room.

Blue curtains were the only soft furnishings in the room. The seventeenth-century paintings that virtually filled the walls remained in place, as the values they symbolized were as relevant as they had been in the past: Solomon Praying for Wisdom by Govert Flinck, Jan van Bronckhorst’s Jethro advising Moses, and Jacob de Wit’s trompe l’oeil grisailles and Moses Electing the Seventy Elders all allude to the giving of wise counsel.

75 .

with pilasters, surrounds, plinths and architraves cut from solid, flawless and nicely flamed mahogany’.53 The shelves were lined with green baize trimmed with gold braid, and the windows were covered with pleated green curtains to protect the books from dust and light.54 The names of the nine Muses – Clio, Thalia, Erato, Euterpe, Polyhymnia, Calliope, Terpsichore, Urania and Melpomene – were inscribed above the doors.

In less than a year, the library and map room were moved to the mezzanine to make space available for the Crown Prince’s rooms. The names of some of the Muses disappeared in the process.

The Library and the Map Room

maps and sketches of different parts of the world. After Louis’s abdication, Napoleon arranged for part of the collection to be sent to Paris.50

For the library and map room Cuel chose green wallpaper and green silk curtains. The colour was believed to have a soothing effect on the eyes and was therefore considered suitable for a library or study.51 Cuel also supplied chairs and fauteuils for both rooms. The library further contained a small secretaire of a type known as a Napoleon,52 and elegant bookcases made by Carel Breytspraak (p.33). According to Ziesenis’s contract for the order, the bookcases cost 6,000 guilders and were to be delivered within four weeks, subject to a delay penalty of fifty guilders a day. As specified in the accompanying drawing, they were to be made of ‘planks of extra dry, finely quartered Rhine or Riga oak,

76

Carel Breytspraak (1769–1810), Library stairs, 1809.

Office of the Comptroller of the Royal Palaces, The Hague. Photo Saskia Broekema

The Council Chamber.

Government Buildings Agency, The Hague. Photo Wim Ruigrok

Louis shared his brother’s passion for books. He donated generously to the Royal Library and wrote a book himself after leaving the country (Marie ou les Hollandoises, 1814). He established a library in the former Secretary’s Office of his new palace, and used it as his office. According to Garnier, the collection comprised 4,325 volumes – a quarter of them in Dutch – making it the largest of its kind in all the King’s residences. There was also a cabinet topographique, or map room, the only one Louis had in the Netherlands. It housed 266 maps, atlases, route

The chapel A practising Roman Catholic, Louis incorporated a clause in the Constitution of the Kingdom of Holland to the effect that each of his palaces would have a chapel where the royal family and their household could attend services.55 The chapel in Amsterdam was located in the former Tribunal on the ground floor.

The lofty room occupying two storeys, which had formerly been used for the rituals surrounding the pronouncement of the death sentence, would have made a perfect chapel. However, there are building plans which show that the ceiling was lowered and the floor raised,

77 .

which would inevitably have destroyed the sense of grandeur. The dramatic sculptures and reliefs by Artus Quellinus were concealed behind blue drapes until nothing remained that so much as hinted at the room’s original function.

The chapel was sparsely furnished with thirty elmwood chairs covered in black velvet and two bronze credence tables.56 The altar silver came from the court chapel in Utrecht. In 1809 Witsen Geysbeek remarked that the chapel conveyed a ‘sombreness consistent with its solemn purpose’.57 The King attended services from a loge, a feature of all his court chapels, which he could enter from his apartment. His seat was opposite the altar and the former secretary’s seat in front of it. A painting of the Nativity hung above the altar.58

Grand Marshal’s apartment had grey marble tops. Lower-ranking staff were given oak cabinets with marble tops, and the lowliest, pine with wooden tops. The beds ranged from costly mahogany with fired-gilt fittings to simple folding stretchers. Even so, the furniture for the staff rooms, like all others, came from accredited suppliers to the court.61

Grand Marshal Du Broc was responsible for the royal palaces, their furnishings and the allocation and maintenance of rooms and furniture.59 Although other officers of his rank had their own accommodation in the city, the Grand Marshal lived in the palace. He occupied a ground-floor apartment at the back of the building, on the corner of Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal and Paleisstraat, comprising a private entrance, a dining room, salon, study, bedroom, boudoir and office. It was less lavishly decorated than the apartments on the floor above.

The dining-room chairs were upholstered in black velvet and came from Cuel’s workshop, but they were made of elm instead of mahogany. The rooms other than the salon were predominantly in green. For the salon, Eeltjes made a suite consisting of a sofa, fauteuils and chairs, which Weenink and Kam upholstered in sky blue gourgouran trimmed with orange and white braid.60 The curtains and the carpet were in matching blue and orange.

Staff quarters The Royal Household consisted of 300 members in all, ranging in status from the Grand Marshal to the page in charge of the candles.

Many of them lived in the building. The accommodation they were allocated reflected their position in the hierarchy: high-ranking officials were given larger rooms and more furniture than their subordinates; those of the lowest rank shared double rooms containing an oak writing desk, a bedside table, two rush chairs and a bunk bed. Not just the quantity but also the quality of the furniture in each room was determined by the occupant’s status. The commodes in the royal apartments, for example, were mahogany with white marble tops; those in the

78

The Tribunal, used as a chapel by Louis Napoleon.

Government Buildings Agency, The Hague. Photo Wim Ruigrok

The Grand Marshal’s apartment

Décor The interior of the Amsterdam palace was conceived with a clear purpose in mind. As in all the Bonaparte residences, the furnishings, along with uniforms, medals, badges, jewellery, clocks and tableware, were political instruments employed to express the glory of the French Empire. Étiquette laid down rules governing the arrangement and use of furniture; the emblems chosen to decorate it aimed to endorse and promote the sovereignty of the Bonapartes.62 Symbolism of that kind seems to have been less prevalent in the Amsterdam palace than in the Bonaparte residences in France, although it is difficult to ascertain what those interiors actually looked like. Yet there are still elements of

79 .

80

of the gods themselves – Minerva, Venus, Apollo, Bacchus, Mars and Diana. Decorative motifs were also popular: stars, griffins, chimaera, lion’s paws, flowers, palmettes, putti, dancing nymphs, sphinxes and Egyptian women’s heads, many of them inspired by archaeological finds recovered during Napoleon’s campaign in Egypt, or wall paintings discovered in the ruins of Pompeii in the eighteenth century.64 Echoing the views of two French architects, Ledoux and Boulée, Percier and Fontaine suggest in Recueil de décorations intérieures that decorative motifs should relate to the function of the object on which they appear: ‘Do everything for a reason; do everything in such manner that the reason is apparent and speaks for itself.’65 They embellished bedroom furniture, for example, with symbols of sleep (the poppy), fertility (Thyrus’s staff) or night (goddesses bearing torches) (p.10). The intention was not to illustrate the function of the object but to link it to the glorious civilizations of classical antiquity and thereby underline the power and prestige that an Empire interior aimed to express.

Albert Eeltjes (1751–1836), fauteuil from the Grand Marshal’s apartment.

Government Buildings Agency, The Hague. Photo Wim Ruigrok

the decoration programme to be found that allude to leadership, power and other qualities associated with a monarchy.

Images have been used as symbols of political power throughout the ages. Post-revolutionary France, seeking a replacement for the fleur-de-lis emblem of the old Bourbon dynasty, found ideas in the imagery of classical antiquity: the Phrygian cap and lance, for example, symbolizing liberty, and the fasces representing justice, unity and strength.

After staging a coup d’état and installing himself as First Consul of the French Republic in 1799, Napoleon, like his political predecessors, wanted personal heraldic emblems. The monogrammatic N was an obvious choice, but he also drew inspiration from the great dynasts of the past: the eagle, supreme ruler of the bird kingdom and the symbol chosen by Charlemagne, Emperor of the Romans and Napoleon’s great example; and the bee, emblem of the Merovigian kings of the Salian Franks. His brother Louis incorporated all three – the monogram, the bee and the eagle, alluding to France – in the coat of arms for his new kingdom. He also adopted the crowned lion of the States General with eleven arrows representing the provinces. The two hands holding swords refer to his status as Grand Connêtable of France.

No references to Napoleon are to be found in the palace, but there may never have been any in the first place. There are swans and butterflies, which in France, but not Holland, alluded to Empress Josephine (pp.16 and 35). In Holland, the butterfly was associated with the impossible love between Psyche and Amor and symbolized the soul and the weightless world. In Greek mythology, the swan represents Zeus’s metamorphosis; it is also an attribute of the gods Venus and Apollo. In Celtic lore, it stands for nobility and purity.63

Classical symbols of victory were abundantly in evidence, in the form of personifications, laurel wreaths, olive branches, palm sprigs, oak leaves, wings, trophies, helmets, swords, bows, fasces, trumpets, lyres and other attributes of Greek and Roman gods, along with images

clocks Clocks were important accessories in an Empire interior.66 Besides being functional, they were also precious works of art testifying to the wealth and distinction of their owner. Many also formed part of the symbolic programme of their surroundings. There were sixty-six clocks in the 1500 rooms of the Palace of Fontainebleau and twelve in Malmaison. The inventories of 1810 list twelve Empire clocks in Het Loo Palace and four each in Louis’s residences in Utrecht and Haarlem. Amsterdam, with at least thirteen clocks on record, surpassed the other Dutch palaces.

The Amsterdam clocks were manufactured in France, but bought from local dealers like P. Reeder & Son of The Hague or Ciovino & Truffino Bros. of Amsterdam. They were displayed on a mantelpiece or console, usually with a mirror behind them. They were made of bronze and often incorporated marble, semi-precious stones, porcelain or other costly materials.

The simplest Empire clocks featured columns or other elements of classical architecture. The Amsterdam palace had one example of this type. The remainder were pendules à sujet, clocks depicting popular scenes from classical antiquity or contemporary paintings or sculptures such as The Oath of the Horatii by Jacques Louis David (1748–1825) (p.85).

Inventories list several clocks without giving further details or information about them. It is therefore impossible to match them to existing clocks in the collection or establish when they were bought or in which rooms they were displayed.67

A substantial portion of the decoration budget was spent on clocks. A simple design would easily cost 500 guilders and a more

81 .

elaborate one upwards of 2,200 guilders. The most expensive piece, portraying Napoleon as Julius Caesar, was bought for 4,200 guilders (p.7). The clock that stood in the Crown Prince’s room, known as Scholarship and Frivolity, is decorated with symbolic imagery that was considered relevant to the intended user.68 The motif of Scholarship resisting the temptations of Frivolity was meant to serve as an example for the young Prince.

Louis Napoleon had little time to enjoy his Amsterdam palace. On 1 July 1810, less than three years after his arrival in Amsterdam, he abdicated in favour of his son Crown Prince Napoleon-Louis, under pressure from his brother Emperor Napoleon. On 9 July, instead of granting the succession, Napoleon annexed the Dutch provinces to France.

A month later, he declared the palace in Dam Square an Imperial Palace. He and his second wife Marie-Louise stayed there only once, in October 1811.

The interior of the palace has changed completely since the departure of the French. The Protestant King William I had the Catholic chapel dismantled. In the course of the following century the décor gradually changed as the building’s successive occupants assigned new functions to the rooms, installed new chandeliers and other acquisitions, or replaced carpets, curtains and upholstery. Most of the remnants of the brief period of French rule were permanently removed during renovations of the palace in the 1930s and 1950s.

The building and its furnishings have been used intensively over the past two centuries. Most of the Empire furniture was restored and reupholstered as part of the renovation project of 2005–2009.

Unlike a museum display, it has remained functional. Hence, the object of the restoration was to render it sound and serviceable, using high quality fabrics, and to preserve its original state as far as possible. The Empire collection can once again be admired in all its splendour, just as it was in the early nineteenth century. It is indeed ‘un coup d’oeil majestueux’.

Unknown artist, Coat of Arms of the Kingdom of Holland: ‘Strength in Unity’.

Coloured drawing, 1806–1810. Atlas van Stolk, Rotterdam

Conclusion

Renske Cohen Tervaert Researcher Amsterdam Royal Palace Aagje Gosliga Research associate and art historian

82

83 .

1 2

3 4

Thanks to Paul Rem for advice concerning this article.

Quoted from Kikkert 1981, p. 67.

Brugmans 1913, pp. XXXV-XXXVII and pp. 102–103.

Lunsingh Scheurleer 1953, p. 247.

Pieter Vlaardingerbroek’s publication Het paleis van de Republiek: geschiedenis van het stadhuis van Amsterdam contains a detailed account of the structural changes introduced in 1808 and 1809: Vlaardingerbroek 2011, pp. 175–203.

5 The standard layout of a French palace is discussed in detail in the articles by Frans Grijzenhout pp. 22–30 and Bernard Chevallier, pp. 41– 42.

6 For more information about the heating system, see Huisken 1996, pp. 75–79 and Vlaardingerbroek 2011, p. 186.

7 The cost of installing the balcony was 8,900 guilders, as quoted in May 1808. NA, 2.01.25, inv.no. 100, no. 23/25. It was finally erected on 10 November 1808.

8 Vlaardingerbroek 2011, p. 188. See also the article by Frans Grijzenhout, pp. 30 9 Vlaardingerbroek 2011, p. 189.

10 Vlaardingerbroek 2011, p. 181.

11 Ibid. The architects’ responsibilities were redefined on 30 July 1808: they were to produce the designs and submit them to Thibault for approval. By that time, however, the conversion was nearing completion.

12 On the responsibilities of the Royal Household in relation to the decoration project, see Gosliga 2007, pp. 81–84.

13 See Frans Grijzenhout’s article, p. 29.

14 Witsen Geysbeek 1809, p. 100.

15 NA, 2.01.25, inv.no. 100, Estimate no. 2, 24 February 1809 and inv.no. 54.II, no. 44, 26 January 1809.

16 Vlaardingerbroek 2011, pp. 181–182.

17 Vlaardingerbroek 2011, pp. 185–186.

18 Heiden 2009, p. 3, 16–17.

19 AN, fonds 112 AP, inv.no. 1, letter of 28 August 1806.

20 For more information about suppliers and contractors, see Berkhout 1953, Gosliga 2006, Lunsingh Scheurleer 1953 and 1955 and Rem 2003.

21 Chevallier 2008, p. 208.

22 NA, 2.01.25, inv.no. 109.

23 The lamp was designed to allow oxygen to reach the wick, making the light steadier and more even. On electric lighting in historic buildings, see the following publication by the Government Buildings Service (Rijksgebouwendienst): Beek 2011. On the restoration of the lighting at Amsterdam Royal Palace, see Heiden 2009, pp. 9–10.

24 Garnier 1828, p. 9.

25 Witsen Geysbeek 1809, p. 96.

26 Brugmans 1983, p. XLIV and 177.

27 Vlaardingerbroek 2011, p. 198.

28 NA, 2.01.25, inv.no. 100, no. 1, letter of 27 February 1808.

84

29 NA, 2.01.25, inv.no. 368, no. 749.

30 Garnier 1823, p. 128.

31 NA, 2.01.25, inv.no. 54.II, no. 83, letter of 14 August 1809.

32 Étiquette 1808, p. 118; 77.

33 KHA, G4-D9, p. 83. These fauteuils are identical in all but detail to those in Huis Barnaart in Haarlem, likewise by Cuel, which Louis must have seen on his visit to Haarlem.

34 Fleurbaay 1983, p. 36.

35 The game in question is unknown.

Hogendorp 1981, p. 118.

36 KHA, G4- D8 37 Fleurbaay 1983, p. 40.

38 Lunsingh Scheurleer, p. 255.

39 Zaal 1983, pp. 162–163.

See also Huisken 1996, pp. 129–134.

40 Fleurbaay 1983, p. 46.

41 DeLorme 2005, p. 70.

42 Witsen Geysbeek 1809, p. 9.

43 Étiquette 1808, pp. 97, 101, 103.

44 NA, 2.01.25, inv.no. 100, no. 222.

45 Rem 2006, p. 139.

46 KHA, G4-D8. Huisken 1996, pp. 116–117.

47 NA, 2.01.25, inv.no. 100, no. 162.

48 KHA, G4-D3: design in pencil showing the arrangement of the furniture. Staatsraad. See also Fleurbaay 1983, p. 38 and Huisken 1996, pp. 92– 97.

49 KHA, G4-D3: Palais d’Amsterdam, Extract des sommes partis sur l’Etat du Mobillier (date unknown). See also Lunsingh Scheurleer 1953, p. 258.

50 Garnier 1828, p. 153.

51 Chevallier 2008, p. 207.

52 AN, fonds O/2, inv.no. 1098, inventory Amsterdam palace, 1812, p. 18.

53 NA, 2.01.25, inv.no.156, no. 40.

54 NA, 2.01.25, inv.no. 156, no. 122, 8 December 1808.The shelves were covered in 29 days by Weenink and Kam, who also supplied two green tablecloths for the reading tables in both rooms.

55 For detailed information on all Louis Napoleon’s court chapels, see Rem 2007, pp. 157–158.

Publications concerning the court chapel in Amsterdam only: Fleurbaay 1983, p. 32; Huisken 1996, pp. 100–103; Brugmans 1913, pp. XXIV and XXX; Molen 1973, pp. 7– 9.

56 KHA, G4-D8.

57 Witsen Geysbeek 1809, p. 97.

58 KHA, G4-D8.

59 KHA, G4-A3, Étiquette 1809, p. 2.

60 NA, 2.012.25, inv.no. 365, no. 609, Eeltjes’s invoice and KHA, G4-C38: Weenink & Kam’s invoice relating to several palaces.

61 KHA, G4-D8.

62 DeLorme 2005, p. 58.

63 Nouvel-Kammerer 2007, p. 23.

64 DeLorme 2005, p. 106.

65 Percier and Fontaine 1812, p. 10.

66 Chevallier 2008, pp. 31–34, Haspels 2003, pp. 32– 40.

67 Erkelens 2006, pp. 65–71.

68 AN, fonds O/2, inv.no. 1098, inventory Amsterdam Palace, 1812.

The Oath of the Horatii, Paris, c. 1808 Amsterdam Royal Palace Foundation. Photo Qiu Yang

85 .

Bibliography

Archive abbreviations AN = Archives Nationales, Paris KHA = Royal Archives, The Hague NA = National Archives, The Hague SA = Amsterdam City Archives

Amelunxen 1989 Amelunxen, Louis Bonaparte. Bruder Napoleons – Erster König von Holland, Cologne etc., 1989

Brandsma 2006 F. Brandsma, ‘Een basterd Code Napoleon’? Het Wetboek Napoleon, ingerigt voor het Koningrijk Holland’, in J. Hallebeek and A.J.B.Sirks (ed.), Nederland in Franse schaduw. Recht en bestuur in het Koninkrijk Holland (1806-1810), Hilversum 2006, pp.

221-249

Beek 2011 R. van Beek, Wout van Bommel, Henk van der Geest, Elektrisch licht in historische interieurs, The Hague 2011 Beekelaar 2012 G.A.M. Beekelaar, ‘Adriaan Pieter Twent’: Biografisch Woordenboek van Nederland, URL: http://www.historici.nl/Onderzoek/ Projecten?BWN_1780tot1830 Bergvelt 1984 E. Bergvelt, ‘De élèves-pensionnaires van Koning Lodewijk Napoleon’: Reizen naar Rome: Italië als leerschool voor Nederlandse kunstenaars omstreeks 1800, exhib.cat. Haarlem, Teylers Museum, 1984, pp. 45–79 Bergvelt 2007 E. Bergvelt, ‘Lodewijk Napoleon, de levende meesters en het Koninklijk Museum (1806–1810)’, in E. Koolhaas-Grosfeld et al (ed.), Lodewijk Napoleon en de kunsten in het Koninkrijk Holland, Zwolle 2007, pp. 63–77 Berkhout 1953 O. Berkhout, ‘De Haagse stoelenmaker Albert Eeltjes (1751–1836)’, in Antiek 9 (1974–1975), pp.453-466 Bonaparte 1820 Louis Bonaparte, ex-Roi de Hollande, Documens historiques et réflexions sur le gouvernement de la Hollande, 3 vols. Paris 1820

86

Carel Breytspraak (1769–1810), Cylinder desk from the bedroom of Queen Hortense, 1808–1809 Amsterdam Royal Palace Foundation Photo Qiu Yang

Braster 2006 J.F.A. Braster, ‘De schoolwet van 1806: blauwdruk voor een onderwijsbestel’: J. Hallebeek and A.J.B.Sirks (ed.), Nerderland in Franse schaduw.

Recht en bestuur in het Koninkrijk Holland (18061810), Hilversum 2006, pp. 147-164 Brugmans 1913 H.P. Brugmans, Van Raadhuis tot Paleis, Amsterdam 1913 Brummel 1951 L. Brummel, ‘De zorg voor kunsten en wetenschappen onder Lodewijk Napoleon’, Publicaties van het genootschap voor Napoleontische studiën 1 (1951) pp.

11-26 Van der Burg 2009 M. van der Burg, Nederland onder Franse invloed.

Culturele overdracht en staatsvorming in de napoleontische tijd, 1799-1813, Amsterdam 2009 Exhib.cat. 1959 exhib.cat. Lodewijk Napoleon en het Koninkrijk Holland, Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum), 1959 Exhib.cat. 1993 exhib.cat. La reine Hortense. Une femme artiste, Arenenberg and Paris, 1993

87 .

Chevallier 2008 B. Chevallier, Empire Style, Authentic Decor, Thames & Hudson, London 2008 Colenbrander 1903 H.Th. Colenbrander, ‘Gijsbert Karel van Hogendorp in zijn rijpen leeftijd IV’, Onze Eeuw 3 (1903), pp. 720-781 Colenbrander 1919 H.Th. Colenbrander, ‘Studiën over de Nederlandse restauratie’, De Gids 83 (1919), pp. 48-92 De la Croix 1984 R. de la Croix, duc de Castries, La reine Hortense, fille d’impératrice et mère d’empereur, Paris 1984 DeLorme 2005 E.P. DeLorme, ‘Innovative Interiors: The Settings for Joséphine’s Life’, in Eleanor P. DeLorme (ed.), Joséphine and the Arts of the Empire, Los Angeles 2005, pp. 57-75 De Negentiende Eeuw 30 De Negentiende Eeuw 30 (2006) nrs. 3-4: Themanummer: Het Koninkrijk Holland (1806-1810) Dölle 2006 A.H.M. Dölle, ‘De constitutie voor het Koningrijk Holland van 1806’, in J. Hallebeek and A.J.B.Sirks (ed.), Nederland in Franse schaduw, Hilversum 2006, pp. 25-47 Dufresne 2000 C. Dufresne, La reine Hortense, Paris 2000

Eliëns 2007 T. Eliëns, ‘Een Franse zetbaas als pleitbezorger voor de Hollandse nijverheid’, in E. Koolhaas-Grosfeld et al (ed.), Lodewijk Napoleon en de kunsten in het Koninkrijk Holland, Zwolle 2007, pp. 63-77 Emeis 1981 M.G. Emeis, Het Paleis op de Dam. De geschiedenis van het gebouw en zijn gebruikers, Amsterdam 1981 Erkelens 2006 W. Erkelens, ‘De “patriottische intentie” van Lodewijk Napoleon: tafelstukken en pendules uit Paris’, in A.D. Renting, Lodewijk Napoleon; Aan het hof van onze eerste koning 1806-1810, Zutphen 2006, pp. 63-79

88

Étiquette 1806 Étiquette du Palais Impérial, Paris 1806 Étiquette 1808 Étiquette du Palais Royal, Utrecht 1808

Grijzenhout 1999 F. Grijzenhout, Een Koninklijk Museum. Lodewijk Napoleon en het Rijksmuseum 1806-1810, Zwolle 1999

Jourdan 2006 A. Jourdan, ‘Staats- en natievorming in de tijd van Lodewijk Napoleon’, Het Koninkrijk Holland (18061810), pp. 132-147

Evers 1941 G.A. Evers, Utrecht als koninklijke residentie. Het verblijf van Lodewijk Napoleon te Utrecht , 1807-1808, Utrecht 1941

Grijzenhout 2007 F. Grijzenhout, Erfgoed. De geschiedenis van een begrip, Amsterdam 2007

Jourdan/Van der Burg 2005 A. Jourdan and M. van den Burg, ‘Napoléon et les élites bataves: un meme combat?’, in T. Lentz (ed.), Napoléon et l’Europe. Regards sur une politique, Paris 2005, pp. 226-257

Fleurbaay 1983a E. Fleurbaay, Empire in het Paleis; De inrichting van het Paleis op de Dam ten tijde van Lodewijk Napoleon, Amsterdam 1983

De Haan/Van Zanten 2006 I. de Haan and J. van Zanten, ‘Lodewijk als wegbereider van Willem? Kritische kanttekeningen bij een nieuw idée reçu’, in Het Koninkrijk Holland (18061810), pp. 285-301

Fleurbaay 1983b E. Fleurbaay. ‘De kroonluchters in de Burgerzaal van het Paleis op de Dam’, in Antiek, vol. 18 (19831984), pp. 5-14

Hallebeek/Sirks 2006 J. Hallebeek and A.J.B.Sirks (ed.), Nederland in Franse schaduw. Recht en bestuur in het Koninkrijk Holland (1806-1810), Hilversum 2006

Fontaine 1987 P.-F.-L. Fontaine, Journal, vol. 1, Paris 1987

Hanoteau 1927-1930 J. Hanoteau (ed.), Mémoires de la reine Hortense, publiés par le prince Napoléon, 3 vols., Paris 1927-1930

Garnier 1823 A.L. Garnier, Het hof van Holland, onder den regering van Lodewijk Bonaparte. Door een Auditeur, Amsterdam 1823 Garnier 1828 A.L. Garnier, Mémoires sur la cour de Louis Napoléon et sur la Hollande, Paris 1828 Goossens 2005 E.-J. Goossens (ed.), Stadhuis van Oranje. 350 jaar geschiedenis op de Dam, Amsterdam 2005 Gosliga 2006 A. Gosliga, ‘The Dutch tapissiers of Louis Napoleon’, in Empire Furniture: introduction, adoption, adaptation and conservation: proceedings eighth international symposium on wood and furniture conservation,Amsterdam, 17-18 November 2006, H. Piena,A. Barth (ed.), 2006 Gosliga 2007 A. Gosliga, ‘“L’intention patriotique” van Lodewijk Bonaparte en de Hollandse kunstnijverheid’, in E. Koolhaas-Grosfeld (ed.), Lodewijk Napoleon en de kunsten in het Koninkrijk Holland, Zwolle 2007, pp. 77-99 De Gou 1997 L. de Gou, De Staatsregeling van 1805 en de Constitutie van 1806: bronnen voor de totstandkoming, The Hague 1997

Haspels 2003 J.J.L. Haspels, A.M.L.E. Erkelens, M.F. van KersenHalbertsma, Koninklijke klokken in Paleis Het Loo, Zwolle 2003 Van Hattum 1988 M. van Hattum, Jan Fredrik Helmers. Drie gedichten (1808), Amstelveen 1988 Heiden 2009 Paula van der Heiden, Restauratie en renovatie van het paleis; Negentiende-eeuwse schittering in zeventiendeeeuwse context, Alkmaar 2009 Hogendorp 1981 G.K. van Hogendorp, Journal d’Adrichem (1806-1809) en Journal de La Haye (1810-1813), The Hague 1981 Hoogenboom 1985 A. Hoogenboom, ‘De rijksoverheid en de moderne beeldende kunst in Nederland, 1795-1848’, in H. van Dulken, et al (ed.), Kunst en beleid in Nederland, Amsterdam 1985, pp. 13-79 Huisken 1996 J.E. Huisken, ’s Konings Paleis op den Dam. Het Koninklijk Paleis op de Dam historisch gezien, Zutphen 1996 Joor 2000 J. Joor, De adelaar en het lam. Onrust , opruiing en onwilligheid in Nederland ten tijde van het Koninkrijk Holland en de Inlijving bij het Franse Keizerrijk (1806-1813) Amsterdam, 2000

Kikkert 1981 J.G. Kikkert, Koning van Holland. Louis Bonaparte 1778-1846, Rotterdam 1981 Koolhaas-Grosfeld 2001 E. Koolhaas-Grosfeld, ‘Tentoonstellingen 1808-1813: een kleine selectie van grote werken’, in J. Kloek and W.W. Mijnhardt, 1800. Blauwdrukken voor een samenleving, The Hague 2001, pp. 409-417b Koolhaas-Grosfeld et al 2007 E. Koolhaas-Grosfeld et al (ed.), Lodewijk Napoleon en de kunsten in het Koninkrijk Holland, Zwolle 2007 Koolhaas-Grosfeld 2010 E. Koolhaas-Grosfeld, De ontdekking van de Nederlander in boeken en prenten rond 1800, Zutphen 2010 v Lefuel 1923 H. Lefuel, François-Honoré-Georges Jacob-Desmalter, Paris 1923 Lok 2006 M. Lok, ‘ ”De schaduwkoning”, de beeldvorming van koning Lodewijk tijdens de Restauratie’, Het Koninkrijk Holland (1806-1810), pp. 273-285 Lok 2009 M.M. Lok, Windvanen. Napoleontische bestuurders in de Nederlandse en Franse Restauratie, 1813-1820, Amsterdam 2009 Lokin et al 2010 J.H. Lokin et al (ed.), Tweehonderd jaar codificatie van het privaatrecht in Nederland, Groningen 2010 Lunsingh Scheurleer 1953 Th.H. Lunsingh Scheurleer, ‘De inrichting van het Koninklijk Paleis te Amsterdam onder Lodewijk Napoleon’, in Publikaties van het Genootschap voor Napoleontische Studiën, 1953, vol. 4, pp. 243-258

89 .

Lunsingh Scheurleer 1955 Th.H. Lunsingh Scheurleer, ‘De inrichting van het Koninklijk Paleis te Amsterdam onder Lodewijk Napoleon II’, in Publikaties van het Genootschap voor Napoleontische Studiën, 1955, vol. 7, pp. 25-35 Meeuwse 2008 K. Meeuwse (ed.), Lodewijk Napoleon. De Hollandse jaren, Uithoorn 2008 Mijnhardt 1997 W. W. Mijnhardt, ‘ “Het Volk van Nederland eischt Verlichting”: Franse hervormingsijver en Nederlandse wetenschapsbeoefening (1795-1815), in W.P. Gerritsen, Het Koninklijk Instituut (18081851) en de bevordering van wetenschap en kunst, Amsterdam 1997, pp. 11-37 Molen 1973 Joh.R. ter Molen, ‘Het zilver van de “Warmondcollectie”, herdruk uit Jaarboek Haarlem (1973) Nouvel-Kammerer 2007 O. Nouvel-Kammerer, Symbols of Power, Napoleon and the Art of the Empire Style 1800-1815, Harry N. Abrams inc., New York 2007 Ouwerkerk 2003 A. Ouwerkerk, Tussen kunst en publiek, Leiden 2003 Percier and Fontaine 1812 C. Percier and P.F.L.Fontaine, Recueil de décorations intérieures comprenant tout ce qui a rapport à l’ameublement , Paris 1812 Rem 2003 Paul Rem, Hofmeubilair. Negentiende-eeuwse meubelen uit de collectie van Paleis Het Loo, Zwolle 2003 Rem 2006 P. Rem, ‘De paleizen van Lodewijk Napoleon en hun inrichting’, in A.D. Renting, Lodewijk Napoleon.

Aan het hof van onze eerste koning 1806-1810, Zutphen 2006, pp. 19-35 Rem 2007 P. Rem, ‘De hofkapel in de Hollandse paleizen van Lodewijk Napoleon’, in E. Koolhaas-Grosfeld (ed.), Lodewijk Napoleon en de kunsten in het Koninkrijk Holland, Zwolle 2007, p. 149-165 Reynaerts 2001 J. Reynaerts, ‘Het karakter onzer Hollandsche School.’

De Koninklijke Akademie van Beeldende Kunsten te Amsterdam, 1817-1870, Leiden 2001

90

Rietbergen 2006 P.J. Rietbergen, Lodewijk Napoleon, Nederlands eerste koning 1806-1810, Amersfoort/Bruges 2006 Rocquain 1875 F. Rocquain, Napoléon et le roi Louis, Paris 1875 Roeleveld 2006 J. Roeleveld, ‘ “Cette grande inertie qu’on rencontre sans cesse dans la marche des affaires”, Het Koninkrijk Holland (1806-1810), pp. 177-192 Rosendaal 2005 J. Rosendaal (inl.), Staatsregeling voor het Bataafsche volk 1798. De eerste grondwet van Nederland, Nijmegen 2005 Samoyault-Verlet 1974 C. Samoyault-Verlet, ‘Le remeublement de Fontainebleau sous l’Empire’, in Souvenir napoléonien, no. 277, September 1974 Sanders 2007 G. Sanders, ‘De Ridderorden van Lodewijk Napoleon’, in E. Koolhaas-Grosfeld et al (ed.), Lodewijk Napoleon en de kunsten in het Koninkrijk Holland, Zwolle 2007, pp. 37-63b Van Sas 2004 N.C.F. van Sas, De metamorfose van Nederland.: van oude orde naar moderniteit , 1750-1900, Amsterdam 2004

Vlaardingerbroek 2011 P. Vlaardingerbroek, Het paleis van de Republiek: geschiedenis van het stadhuis van Amsterdam, Zwolle 2011 Wagener 1992 F. Wagener, La reine Hortense, Paris 1992 Witsen Geysbeek 1809 Pieter Gerardus Witsen Geysbeek, Het tegenwoordig Amsterdam, Amsterdam 1809 Wright 1961 C. Wright, Daughter to Napoleon. A biography of Hortense, queen of Holland, London 1961 Ydema 2006 O. Ydema, ‘Op zoek naar draagkracht. Belastingen vóór, tijdens en na de tijd van Lodewijk Napoleon’, in J. Hallebeek and A.J.B.Sirks (ed.), Nederland in Franse schaduw. Recht en bestuur in het Koninkrijk Holland (1806-1810), Hilversum 2006, pp. 101-125 Zaal 1983 Wim Zaal (ed.), Lodewijk Napoleon, Koning van Holland: Gedenkschriften, Amsterdam 1983

Schoon 2006 D.J. Schoon, ‘Lodewijk Napoleon en de regeling der godsdiensten in Holland’: J. Hallebeek and A.J.B.Sirks (ed.), Nederland in Franse schaduw. Recht en bestuur in het Koninkrijk Holland (1806-1810), Hilversum 2006, pp. 77-101 Uitterhoeve 2010 W. Uitterhoeve, Koning, keizer, admiraal: 1810: De ondergang van het Koninkrijk Holland, Nijmegen 2010 Velema 2006 W.R.E. Velema, ‘Lodewijk Napoleon en het einde van de republikeinse politiek’, Het Koninkrijk Holland (1806-1810), pp. 147-159 Van de Ven 2006 G.P. van de Ven, ‘Lodewijk Napsoleon en de Waterstaat’, in J. Hallebeek en A.J.B.Sirks (ed.), Nederland in Franse schaduw. Recht en bestuur in het Koninkrijk Holland (1806-1810), Hilversum 2006, pp.125-147

91 .

G ROU N D FLOOR A Exchange Bank 1. Back entrance and vestibule 2–10.

Grand Marshal’s apartment 11. Footmen’s vestibule 12. Guardrooms 13. Royal Chapel 14. King’s vestibule 15–18 Kitchen 19. Silver storeroom, bakery, fuel and coal cellar, light maintenance room 20. Treasury 21. Caretaker’s room 22. Storage area 23. Adjutant’s dining room 24. Nightwatchman’s room 25. Commissionaire’s office 26. Staff dining room

25

2 8

7

6

4

5

20

3

9

1

24

23

21

10 22 11

26

19

19

A

19

A

19

A

A

12

12

A

A

15 14

13

16

17

18

12

12

92

B.W.H. Ziesenis (1768-1820), Ground Floor 1808-1810. The stoves used for heating the first floor are shown in red.

Historische Topografische Atlas, Amsterdam City Archives

93 .

FIRST FLOOR 0 Chapel 1 Grand Salon 2 Throne Room 3 Ambassadors’ Salon 4 Billiard Room 5 Crown Prince’s suite (previously Map Room and Library) 6 King’s bedroom 7 King’s salon 8 Grand Officers’ Salon 9 Chapel gallery 10 Salon intérieur 11 State Council Room 12 King’s dining room 13 Service room 14 Queen’s dining room 15 Queen’s bedroom 16 Queen’s salon 17 ‘Salon des pages’ 18 ‘Antichambre des huissiers’ 19 Salon intérieur 20 Salon intérieur 21 Officers’ lounge 22 Salon intérieur 23 Banqueting Room 24 Salon intérieur

2 4

3

15

16

24

17 18

14

5

1

19

23 13

20

6

21

22

7

11 8

12

0 10 9

94

B.W.H. Ziesenis (1768-1820), First Floor 1808-1810.

Historische Topografische Atlas, Amsterdam City Archives

95 .

Colophon King Louis Napoleon & His Palace in Dam Square has been published for the exhibition of the same name held at the Amsterdam Royal Palace from 29 June to 16 September 2012.

Contributors Bernard Chevallier Renske Cohen Tervaert Aagje Gosliga Frans Grijzenhout Eveline Koolhaas-Grosfeld Editor Marianna van der Zwaag Text Editors Renske Cohen Tervaert Aagje Gosliga Roosmarijn Ubink Translation Yvette Rosenberg, Amsterdam and Translation Department (AVT) Ministry of Foreign Affairs Design Eriksen/Brown, Oslo Printing & Lithography Calff & Meischke, Amsterdam Publisher Amsterdam Royal Palace

ISBN 978 90 720 8042 4

Š 2012 Amsterdam Royal Palace / the authors All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted into any information storage or retrieval system, or circulated in any form or by any means, electronically or mechanically, by photocopying, recording or any other means, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

The publisher has made due effort to observe all legal requirements governing the use of visual material. Parties whose rights may nevertheless inadvertently have been infringed are requested to contact the publisher.

The copyrights of contributors affiliated to a CISAC member are registered with Pictoright, Amsterdam.

k o n i n k l i j k p a l e i s a m s t e r d a m