This is not quite the same thing as a diorama, but is of historical interest nevertheless.
John Vanderlyn visited Versailles a few months after Napoleon's 1814 campaign and made sketches of Versailles as it appeared at that particular moment in time. He went back to New York and a few years later produced a panorama of Versailles that has its own special room in the American wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
What I find fascinating about the panorama (besides the fact that it is very well done) is that it is a bit like photographs of Paris under Nazi occupation. If you look around you'll see civilians, a very few people in French uniforms, and a lot of people in Russian and Prussian uniforms. And not an Austrian uniform in sight.
The Met's photographs don't really do the piece justice. You can walk right up to the painting and note exactly what the different people are wearing. On the building side of the panorama the king appears on the grand balcony. Below him are two guards who are wearing the exact same uniforms that they would have worn six months before when they were Chasseurs of the Imperial Guard. On the grounds side of the panorama (to the far right) you can see Tsar Alexander (who looks like he's trying to decide what to take home with him to add to his collection at the Hermitage) and a slightly subservient Friedrich Wilhelm. And a bit to the left of this group of figures is a self-portait of Vanderlyn himself, looking straight at the viewer and pointing at the two celebrities.
Here's the link:
http://www.metmuseum.org/collections/se ... 3052?img=1If you're ever in New York I strongly recommend a visit to the Met to see this, because this is probably as close to a time-capsule snapshot of what people really looked like in Napoleon's day as you can get. And it's amazing how many clothing and uniform details can be crammed into a two to four inch figure.
NWC
Login
FAQ
