Antoine François TERIGGI (Bastia, 1785 – 1848)

Private collection, France.

A Corsican portrait painter much admired by the Bonapartes, for whom he painted portraits of Zénaïde and Charlotte[1], Antoine François Teriggi has here created a poignant portrait of the fallen eagle.

Dressed simply, nothing seems to formally mark him as such, were it not for the discreet presence of the imperial eagle on the column’s pedestal. With a puffy face, a pale complexion and thinning hair, he nevertheless stands upright, his gaze frank and direct upon the artist capturing his likeness. The approach is reminiscent of that taken in 1841 by Paul Delaroche (1797–1856) in 1841 when he painted *Napoleon at Fontainebleau* (Fig. 1), a portrait of the sovereign in the moment preceding his first fall from power and his exile to Elba. Slumped in an armchair, his facial features betraying exhaustion and resignation, everything suggests the despondency of the impending defeat and its irrevocable nature. In Teriggi’s work, the calm and composed gaze perhaps evokes more the serenity of a man who expects nothing more of the world than what his past has already offered him. 

[1] See the portrait of Zenaïde and Charlotte Bonaparte, c. 1084, watercolour on ivory, Rome, Museo Napoleonico (inv. MN 157).