[DRAWING]. MATHILDE (Princess) (Mathilde Létizia Wilhelmine - Lot 239

[DRAWING]. MATHILDE (Princess) (Mathilde Létizia Wilhelmine Bonaparte, 1820-1904)]. Group of four women, African, European, Oriental and Indian, in the sky a star to the glory of N [apology of Bonapartism, embodied by Louis-Napoleon, future Napoleon III]. Drawing, wash and watercolour on paper, youthful drawing, dated and signed France, signed and dated "Mathilde 1838" in the lower left corner Dimensions: 175 x 250 mm. Drawing pasted on a flexible cardboard. Daughter of Jerome Bonaparte, ex-king of Westphalia, and of his second wife, Catherine of Wurtemberg, Princess Mathilde was raised in Rome and Florence where her parents were in exile. In 1835, she was engaged to her cousin Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte, the future Napoleon III. She was then 15 years old. In preparation for the wedding, Jérôme Bonaparte bought the castle of Gottlieben, near Arenenberg, where Hortense de Beauharnais and her son Louis-Napoleon were staying, on credit for the young couple. She finally married Count Anatole Demidoff, Prince of San Donato, in Florence on 1 November 1840. When her cousin Louis-Napoleon was elected President of the Republic (he later became Emperor) she found herself in a leading role at his side. From 1848 to 1852, Mathilde acted as housekeeper at the Élysée Palace. Princess Mathilde began to paint at an early age, at around ten, copying paintings of the Italian School in the Florence gallery. She was a pupil of Eugène Giraud, and exhibited at the Salon of 1859. She painted portraits, oriental scenes or copies after the masters, in watercolour and pastel. About her, Sainte-Beuve said: "Princess Mathilde is an artist at heart. Her style is neither small nor loose, nor does it smell of a woman's work; one would think one was looking at the productions of a talented young man, who practices widely and develops. She passes alternately from the copy of the masters to living studies, either to those of models with characters, or to portraits of her friends...".