Princess Mathilde  (182o-1904)

Cousin of Napoleon III, sister of Prince Napoleon. companion to Nieuwerkerke. Brought up in Rome and Florence, she was refused in marriage to Napoleon III during the years when everyone thought he was a worthless adventurer. She was then married to an even more worthless adventurer, Anatole Demidotlin in 1841 and legally separated from him in 1845. She had meanwhile met Emilien, le comte de Nieuwerkerke; their liaison would exercise the major influence on the art policy of the Second Empire for, the Emperor and Empress lacking interest and taste in art, Mathilde, who lacked taste only, became the power behind the throne. Even-handed, she disliked both Ingres and Delacroix. She collected light­ weight genre paintings, principally by Eugene Giraud, her painting teacher. Her reputation as a cultivated amateur rests on the fact that her weekly soirees were attended by artists of the calibre of Giraud, Hebert, Baudry, that she exhibited in the Salon from 1859 to 1866 and was among the first to recognize the talent of Bonvin and Tissot. She was, however. among the last to recognize any of the major nineteenth-century artists.

Franz Xaxer Winterhalter, Mathilde Laetitia Wilhelmine Bonaparte (1841?)