The Mystery Stories in Josephine Code --- VII Code
Josephine Code, as a world-shocking masterpiece, writes its own legend stories not because of its glorious background and its great popularity by the society or of the painter’s great talent, reputation and unmatched realistic painting, by which the great beauty of Empress Josephine has been recorded forever within a few seconds, but because of its unknown mysteries.
The painting is like fog. The portrait hero looks back and stares at the painter, wishing to say something but stop on a second thought. All these make this unfinished painting full of legend of mysteries. This is the right Josephine Code, with a history of frustration and full of magic color, and is also well known as VII Code in the circle.
 In fact, everyone, insider or outsider, never stops making surveys or taking researches on this painting in recent two centuries. There is an unconfirmed saying goes that the talented young painter, Pulis (1784 -1813), David’s students was commissioned by Napoleon to make the painting for Empress Josephine, but he died in sudden and failed to finish the painting.
Another popular version is that Empress Josephine kept an illicit affair with Pulis and she was naked completely during painting. Napoleon knew this and killed Pulis in secret. Another saying welcomed by the insiders goes that the painter mastered a pigment formulation of oil painting, which could keep the original color forever. The essence of the pigment formulation is that the ingredient of a kind of vegetal extract, which contained the special beauty present which was served by Byrne Victor for the Empress Josephine --- the widely spreaded “Ageless Mythology” (VII Code), was applied to help the painting stay true and keep the original color, and meantime produce a rich color effects.
This soon caused a stir over Europe. To keep the secret, Pulis was killed. There are still many other versions and unable to decide which one is right. However, one point can be sure that Byrne Victor carefully developed and blended the extracted essence, enlightened by his old friend, Antonie Van Leeu Wenhoek (1738-1810), a famous botanist.
Josephine, in the painting, looks pure, elegant, and extraordinarily beautiful, and her pretty, delicate and glossy skin is the most impressive. It is difficult to guess the real age of the Empress, which moves our thoughts to the secret recipe, VII Code, which helped the Empress keep young forever. VII Code has been keeping its mysterious veil , not only because it helped create a most beautiful Empress in history, but also because of its unimaginable manufacturing process and the careful picking and selecting of raw materials.
The extraction is known as unbelievable. At the very beginning of spring and first few seconds of sunrise, some teenaged girls pick down tender shoots of plants and put them in their breast pockets, and then collect the shoots in the cave and cover them with a piece of specially prepared linen. When it comes to the time of sunset, the linen, which absorbs completely various essences of heaven and earth, will be taken out and be extracted. This method has a far-reaching influence on the producing of France perfume in the later years, according to a rumor.
What is more miraculous, upon the request of Byrne Victor, the manufacturing vessel was made of stones which were brought back from Alps in the northern Italy by Napoleon after the victory of Southward Expedition. Besides, the plant raw materials were collected from the south Alps and the entire manufacturing process was proceeding in the cave of central Alps. No wonder there is a saying circulating that the manufacturing process of VII Code is like playing a wonderful play: Romeo and Juliet met each other in the mountains where they were born and finally had their love fruit, the “Ageless Mythology” --- VII Code.
Even now, we linger in front of Josephine Code, being looked back and stared at by the portrait hero, who opens her mouth slightly, seems to want to tell us something but stops on a second thought. What on earth does she want to tell us? We could never know.
However, Theophile Burger-thore (1806-1869), the famous literary and art critic from France, made a very profound and meaningful comment that “Sure that importance should not be stressed on how drop-dead gorgeous or beautiful the portrait hero looks in the painting any longer, but should be stressed on what does the portrait hero want to tell us --- the secret behind her great beauty.” This is the Josephine Code, an enigma like fog, and an “Ageless Mythology” --- VII Code.