A reproduction of Une Soirée was produced by the Adolphe Braun company for its art publications. Braun had begun reproducing artworks in the late 1860s. The piece appeared in their 1880 catalogue under the title “Gathering of distinguished persons” (priced at 15 francs) and was listed among “Paintings in Private Collection.” Unlike most privately owned works in the catalogue, no owner was identified.

Because the title is so generic, it is unlikely that the reproduction was made while de Nieuwerkerke was still in Paris or that it was produced in his apartment. It must have been created after he resigned in September 1870. It also seems not to have been photographed at the Louvre galleries, since in that case it would have appeared in the catalogue’s Louvre section. De Nieuwerkerke’s successors were, respectively, Villot⁷² (up to 1874), Reiset⁶⁵ (up to 1879), and Barbet de Jouy^44b (up to 1881), so the reproduction could have been done under any of these directors. Nevertheless, the photograph eventually entered the Louvre’s photo collection, and conservator Grandjean is known to have had a copy on his desk in the late 1970s. At present, the location of Adolphe Braun's photograph is being investigated.

The end of the Second Empire

In 1881, these rights passed to Empress Eugénie, then living in exile in England at Camden Place, Chislehurst, before moving to Farnborough Hill. Based on the accounts of historians Frédéric Masson (e.g. known for his book Napoléon et les femmes (1894) and Armand Dayot, and in the absence of any Farnborough inventory listing the painting, Une Soirée appears to have remained in storage in France, likely in the Louvre’s reserve collections.

In Souvenirs d’un directeur des Beaux-Arts (1883), conservator Chennevières²⁰ lamented:
“This painting embodies a defining moment in the history of the Louvre […] and it is a great pity that the superintendent was not allowed to bequeath them to the Louvre, where they should have remained the traditional ornament of his successors’ cabinets. Let us hope at least that the marvelous series of portfolios containing the drawings of Eugène Giraud will later return to our museum: I am referring to those watercolor portraits, semi-caricatures, of the people who frequented the soirées of Monsieur de Nieuwerkerke.”

In fact, the purchase agreement shows that Une Soirée belonged to the state. Yet, as Catherine Granger notes, Louvre curators often followed their own criteria of importance. Barbet de Jouy, who appears in the painting, may even have preferred that it remained outside public view.

Eugène Giraud’s¹¹ watercolor caricatures eventually entered the possession of Alexandre Dumas, likely given to him by de Nieuwerkerke when he departed for Italy in 1870.

In 1896, Princess Mathilde acquired them and later bequeathed them to the French state’s print collection. If Giraud had been paid by de Nieuwerkerke personally, this transfer was legitimate. If he had been paid from the Emperor’s private funds, Mathilde could have claimed ownership. If, however, the caricatures had been financed by the state’s art-encouragement fund (as Une Soirée was), their private transfer would have been irregular.
In any case, Mathilde’s donation ensured their entry into the BnF, who occasionally makes them available for exhibitions.

The search for Une Soirée

In 1891, a researcher of Alfred de Musset⁷³ published a query in L’Intermédiaire des chercheurs et curieux concerning a short poem Musset wrote in 1855, containing the line: “[Biard] rendered me awake, but also half.” The writer sought the painting’s whereabouts. The question remained unanswered until 1926, when another reader asked about the “Salon of Count de Nieuwerkerke” mentioned by Edmond About in his 1855 Salon review. A correspondent replied that they even had approached Marie Biard — daughter of Biard and Léonie d’Aunet — but that she could provide no information.

Toward the end of the century, historians Masson and Dayot, assisted by Eugénie’s representative Firmin Rainbeaux, traced the usufruct to the exiled Empress in England. For his monumental study of the Second Empire (published in 1900), Dayot arranged for an engraving to be made from the painting in the Louvre reserves — a rare moment when the work briefly resurfaced.

Dayot titled it Une Soirée au Louvre chez le comte de Nieuwerkerke and attempted to identify several figures, adding their names beneath the engraving in a sans-serif typeface fashionable at the time. In 1981, Louvre conservator Nicole Villa noted: “ce n’est pas une vraie grille,” meaning that these identifications had not been systematically verified (which is what my research intends).

Transfers to heirs and return to France

After 1900, the French state began a large-scale reorganization of imperial artworks belonging to the Liste civile. The Bonaparte family negotiated to recover certain objects under custodial rights (not ownership). This is how works ended up in Bonaparte residences such as Prangins Castle, Schloss Arenenberg, and Farnborough Hill.
In 1920, Paul-André Lemoisne reported in the Bulletin de la Société de l’Histoire de l’Art Français that Une Soirée had reached the Farnborough Hill estate.

After Eugénie’s death in 1920, her properties passed to Prince Victor Napoléon (Plon-Plon’s son). By 1926, researchers still had no clear information about the painting that had de Musset’s image. Upon Victor’s death in 1926, his possessions transferred to his son, Prince Louis Napoléon, though his mother, Princess Clémentine of Belgium, managed the estate until her son came of age in 1935. With strained finances, high maintenance costs at Farnborough, and no personal attachment to the property, she sold most of the collection except items of dynastic significance and works belonging to the French state. Thus Une Soirée returned to storage in France.

Return to the State and the painting’s modern fate

After the Second World War, the French government intensified efforts to consolidate state-owned artworks and reclaim Liste Civile objects that remained in private hands under ambiguous hybrid arrangements. These initiatives led to the return of numerous imperial items during the 1960s and 1970s.

This context aligns with Nicole Villa’s 1981 observation that the Prince Napoléon Foundation placed Une Soirée on deposit at the Château de Compiègne in 1968 and later “donated” the painting to the State.

Legally, such a donation implied renouncing the usufruct, thereby restoring it to full and unequivocal state ownership.
In this respect, Chennevières’ wish for Une Soirée has finally been fulfilled. The French State has the option to present it to the public e.g. at Napoleon III’s château in Compiègne, in the imperial or ministerial rooms of the Louvre, among the many Second Empire objects at the Musée d’Orsay, or even alongside Eugène Giraud’s watercolor caricatures at the BnF.

Biard vs. Hugo: 175 years later, history has the last word

My hope is that this research — documenting this unique representation of the Louvre’s institutional history, its artistic networks, and the aristocratic milieu of the Second Empire — will help return the painting to the prominence it deserves.

After one hundred twenty-five years out of public view, and several transports, this “Sleeping Beauty” has suffered visible damage. One may hope that restoration will soon be possible, along with technical analysis of the canvas to reveal the revisions made in 1854.

Beyond the pleasure of reconstructing this remarkable chapter of cultural history, the purpose of this website is to offer visitors an in depth, interactive perspective on the social world of the early Second Empire — and, more broadly, to celebrate the extraordinary richness of French cultural heritage, accessible here even outside the constraints of visiting hours.