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| Title | Infant King of Rome | |
| Collection | Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle | |
| Artist | French School | |
| Date Earliest | about 1800 | |
| Date Latest | about 1815 | |
| Description | This painting was bought as a portrait of the King of Rome, Napoleon I's son. It is impossible to know whether this attribution is correct, but the child represented does wear an Empire-style dress. Napoléon François Joseph Charles Bonaparte was born in 1811, the son of the French Emperor and his second wife Marie-Louise of Austria. After his father's abdication he was emperor for a few days. He spent most of his life in Vienna, with his grand-father François I, who made him Duke of Reichstag. He died of tuberculosis at the age of twenty-one. His legend grew thanks to poems about him written by Victor Hugo and a play by Edmond Rostand. He remains known in France as L'Aiglon (the eaglet, a reference to his father 'The Eagle'). | |
| Current Accession Number | B.M.1028 | |
| Subject | portrait (Napoleon II?) | |
| Measurements | 19.5 x 15 cm (estimate) | |
| Material | oil on canvas | |
| Acquisition Details | Bequeathed by the founders John and Joséphine Bowes 1885. | |
| Notes | A number of paintings show Napoleon's son as a blond baby, not dissimilar to B.M.1028 (however all babies tend to look very much alike in paintings). See for instance Le Roi de Rome (1812, Musée national du Château de Fontainebleau) by François Baron Gérard, inv. no. F 1987.4. | |
| Rights Owner | The Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle, Co. Durham | |
| Author | Dr Maylis Hopewell-Curie | |