Slaapkamer van Napoleon I c. 1860 - 1890

Editor: So, this is "Slaapkamer van Napoleon I" – Napoleon I's Bedroom – a photograph, I believe a print, made sometime between 1860 and 1890 by Ernest Eléonor Pierre Lamy. The thing that strikes me is how… staged it feels. All the furniture seems brand new and precisely placed. What jumps out to you? Curator: It's a fascinating snapshot of 19th-century material culture, isn’t it? Forget the grand narrative of Napoleon himself. I see a carefully constructed scene designed for mass consumption. We have to ask: who produced these furnishings? What materials were used – where did those come from, and who was exploited in the making of this stage set of power? Editor: So, less about Napoleon, more about the…supply chain? Curator: Exactly! Look closely. Is that mahogany veneer on the commode? Who profited from that trade? The textiles on the bed – were they locally produced or imported? How did the industrial revolution play into furnishing residences and marketing their depictions via photography? Lamy isn’t just capturing a room, but capturing – and participating in – a system of production and consumption. Consider the rise of tourism in this period, people are seeking this out. Editor: I see. So, it’s not about *high* art, but how *things* were made and circulated at the time…and the socio-economic systems that produced all this…furnishings *and* photograph? Curator: Precisely! The very act of photographing and reproducing this image makes it a commodity, fueling the desire for these symbols of power, for consumption by the rising bourgeois. Who is really in power here? What kind of consumer culture is beginning to develop? What impact might colonialism or slavery have had on production and consumption? Editor: I never would have considered that! Thanks for that illuminating…materialist interpretation. I see that this print says much more about French society at that time than Napoleon himself!