News of the opening of an exhibition of the former collection of the Dukes of Leuchtenberg now in the State Hermitage Museum. The exhibition is called The Russian Descendants of the French Empress: The Dukes of Leuchtenberg in St Petersburg and opens at the Rumyantsev Mansion (44 English Embankment) on 6 October 2011 and runs until 1 February 2012.
The collection was begun by Josephine, wife of Napoléon I, before passing to her son, Eugène de Beauharnais, 1st Duke of Leuchtenberg. Later, it was inherited by his children. The exhibition includes portraits of Napoléon I, Josephine, her two children Hortense and Eugène de Beauharnais, and the latter's descendants. Other works include Jean-François Soiron's miniature of Napoléon in his coronation robes (1809) and François Flameng’s Portrait of Daria Leuchtenberg (1896).
The exhibition shows two paintings from Empress Josephine's Malmaison collection – The Christ Child and John the Baptist in a Landscape by Pieter Paul Rubens (school) and Interior of a Gothic Church by Peeter Neeffs I. Besides canvases inherited from his mother, Eugène de Beauharnais also possessed his own personal collection, including such works as The Christ Child Blessing by Pieter Paul Rubens (school) and Antoine-Jean Gros’s Napoléon Bonaparte on the Bridge at Arcole (1796–97).
In 1854, Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna, the widow of Maximilian, 3rd Duke of Leuchtenberg, brought the Leuchtenberg collection from Munich to St Petersburg. The exhibition includes works from the grand duchess's own collection of art, mostly assembled in the second half of the 1860s and kept at the Villa di Quarto near Florence, as well as decorative art, weaponry and oriental objects from Eugène de Beauharnais.
There is a catalogue in Russian with articles covering every aspect of the collection, including an essay by Elvira Piyayeva on The History of the Russian Branch of the Leuchtenberg-Beauharnais Family.
