The Empress Eugénie In England : Art, Architecture, Collecting

Empress Eugénie (1826-1920), the wife of Napoleon III and the last Empress-Consort of France, is remembered today for her physical beauty, for her influence as a taste maker and for her glittering contribution to the second imperial court - but she outlived the Second Empire by half a century and lived in exile in England.
This catalogue offers an exploration of the little-known assemblage of art and architecture that Empress Eugénie created in Farnborough in the 1880s.

It analyzes the principal buildings on the imperial estate and provides the first detailed account of its lost interiors. It traces the origins of the collection back to the Second French Empire, and-drawing upon historic photos, inventories, and sale catalogs-he shows how the collection was displayed in the principal rooms of the house.

Finally, the book describes the breakup of the estate in 1927, when the house was sold to a convent school and the collection was dispersed at auction.
Recovering the totality of Eugenie's vision for Farnborough, the authors describes how the Napoleonic ideal, for one final time, was made visible through art, architecture, and collecting.