#chinard

Terracotta bust believed to depict Juliette Récamier

Joseph Chinard

C. 1800-1805, Napoleonic era

The keys to the city of Lyon, France. 1805.

Joseph Chinard drew the pieces and the goldsmith Antoine Saunier made them.

They are symbols of Lyon’s allegiance to Napoleon I, who lifted the city from its ashes after the French Revolution. They were created in 1805 on the occasion of the emperor’s visit to Lyon.

These three keys are works of art and do not materially open any door of the city. They symbolically represent the three divisions (north, west and south) that made up the city under the First Empire (1804-1814). Each is decorated with a symbol illustrating the specificity of the neighborhood.

They were made for the visit to Lyon on April 10, 1805, of Emperor Napoleon I and Empress Josephine. They are presented to him publicly, in front of a floor of politicians —whose names are engraved on the back of the dish — as a sign of allegiance and gratitude on the part of the city.

This picture goes pretty hard. Statue in Marseille made during the Napoleonic wars to commemorate the Peace of Amiens and the French victory in the War of the 2nd Coalition.

A tinted plaster bust of Napoleon Bonaparte as first consul by Joseph Chinard (Lyon, 1756-1813)

In the background, it gives the definition of Revolution:

noun

1. a sudden, radical, or complete change

Unfinished sculpture by Joseph Chinard, c. 1807

La Mort du général Desaix / The death of general Desaix