Emma Hart, Lady Hamilton, née Amy Lyons

You're welcome

Malheureusement, j'ai du renoncer aux photos à la moitié de la visite (celles-ci étaient interdites et en plus, le temps me manquait). Passionné comme tu es par ce couple mythique, je te conseille, recommande, t'ordonne d’acquérir le catalogue de l'exposition, une mine d'or :

http://shop.rmg.co.uk/national-maritime-museum/books/guidebooks-exhibitions/product/emma-hamilton-seduction-and-celebrity.html

Oh ? Merci !  





En te lisant, je pensais le demander au père Noël, mais il n'est pas si cher !
Je peux me l'offrir (et donc ne pas être sage d'ici au 25 décembre)...

Mais oui !!! Comme il est soldé, seulement 25 £ frais de port inclus

Allez, un petit dernier portrait pour la route. Œuvre d'EVL, réalisé vers 1791-1792, il appartient aujourd'hui à une collection privée - il fut exposé lors de la dernière biennale à Paris. Emma y est représentée en Sibylle de Cumes, ce qui ne saute pas aux yeux (c'est la seule sibylle qui vieillit me semble-t-il   )

Gouverneur Morris a écrit:
Allez, un petit dernier portrait pour la route. Œuvre d'EVL, réalisé vers 1791-1792, il appartient aujourd'hui à une collection privée - il fut exposé lors de la dernière biennale à Paris.

Merci.
Oui, celui-ci, je m'en souviens. J'ai posté également quelques photos plus avant dans ce sujet...

Je me souviens d'avoir été particulièrement frappée, lors de cette visite à l'expo E.V.L.B. , par les yeux humides de cette Sibylle .

Mme de Sabran a écrit:Je me souviens d'avoir été particulièrement frappée, lors de cette visite à l'expo E.V.L.B. , par les yeux humides de cette Sibylle .

V'oui....

Selon les portraits, notre chère Emma a les yeux bleus ou marrons...Au choix !    

Présenté à l'occasion d'une prochaine vente aux enchères, organisée le 17 janvier 2018, par Sotheby's Londres :

Portrait of Emma Hamilton as a sibyl
By Gavin Hamilton (1723-1798)
Oil on canvas 133.3 x 100.7 cm

Provenance : Sir William Hamilton (1730-1803), by whom sold in 1801


Photo : Sotheby's

Note au catalogue (extraits) :

This sumptuous portrait by Gavin Hamilton was painted circa 1786.
The portrait expresses the artist's dual interest in neo-classicism, fuelled by the recent excavations of Pompeii and Herculaneum, and a fascination with Emma Hamilton herself, whose profuse personal charms seduced an entire generation.
(...)
From blacksmith's daughter to Lady Hamilton, Emma's social assent was steep. Born into poverty in 1765, she rose to become a great muse for famous artists, an influential ambassador’s wife, a European cultural icon and finally Nelson’s mistress – before facing debtor's prison and dying in destitution.

The picture is one of a pair of portraits of Emma by Gavin Hamilton, both of which were recorded in the collection of her husband, Sir William Hamilton at the Palazzo Sessa in 1798, where they were known as the Muses of Painting and Poetry.
The pendant now hangs in the collection at the Stanford University Art Museum, California.


Photo : Sotheby's

Gavin Hamilton was first introduced to Emma in 1785 in the company of Charles Greville, the nephew of Sir William Hamilton.  
They met again the following spring when Gavin, who was on the point of departing for Italy, offered to accompany Emma and her mother to Naples where she was to stay with Sir William in the Palazzo Sessa.
It was during this voyage that he produced many of the works which were to find their way into Sir William’s collection, including this ravishing portrait of Emma in the guise of a sibyl.

* Infos complémentaires et note complète de l'expert : ICI


J'ai tenté de retrouver le portrait en pendant de celui-ci, évoqué dans cet article comme faisant partie des collections du Stanford University Art Museum, mais sans succès.  

La rubrique "Collection" du site internet du musée annonce bien un autre tableau de Gavin Hamilton, mais il s'agit d'une représentation de Hebe Giving Drink to the Eagle of Jupiter.
A priori, rien à voir, donc.


Photo : Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts at Stanford University.
Source : http://museum.stanford.edu

Le musée possède cependant un autre tableau supposé représenter Lady Hamilton.
Cette huile sur toile est titré Lady Hamilton as the Court Muse


Photo : Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts at Stanford University.
Source : http://museum.stanford.edu

Mais il est attribué cette fois-ci à l'artiste-peintre Angelica Kauffmann.
Mystère !

Oui, c'est quand même très curieux ...
Il n'y a aucun portrait écrit d'Emma, brossé de préférence par un contemporain ?

Mme de Sabran a écrit:
Oui, c'est quand même très curieux ...

Qu'est-ce qui est curieux ? Le tableau que je n'ai pas retrouvé ou la couleur de ses yeux ?
Ou encore les deux ?

Mme de Sabran a écrit:Il n'y a aucun portrait écrit d'Emma, brossé de préférence par un contemporain ?

Oh si, je suppose ! Elle était une sorte de "star" à son époque, tout de même.

Je parlais de la couleur de ses yeux, azur ou noisette . Ce n'est pas du tout la même chose !

Mme de Sabran a écrit:Je parlais de la couleur de ses yeux, azur ou noisette .     Ce n'est pas du tout la même chose !

Certes !

Sur ce portrait-ci, les yeux semblent de couleur marron-miel.
Peint d'après nature, il a également appartenu à l'époux de Lady Hamilton.



Bon, notons aussi que le vernis qui a mal vieilli, ou la couche de saletés, ont probablement et aussi modifié les couleurs du temps de quelques-uns des tableaux que nous connaissons.
Mais enfin... Mystère.

Nous sommes à Uppark House, chez Harry Fetherstonhaugh, un temps proche du prince de Galles.

C'est entourée de cette joyeuse compagnie qu'Emma est réputée avoir dansé nue sur cette table   :



A vous d'imaginer  

Pour en savoir plus :

https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/uppark-house-and-garden
https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/uppark-house-and-garden/features/the-house-at-uppark
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uppark

Gouverneur Morris a écrit:
A vous d'imaginer  

... une folle ambiance !

Merci Gouv', et merci pour les liens.

Pas si mal, la visite d'Uppark House...
Notamment un petit cabinet "Pagode" amusant :


Et une étonnante maison de poupées, XVIIIe siècle.


S'il y a des amateurs, je rappelle nos sujets :

Mannequins et poupées de mode au XVIIIe siècle

Poupées royales à la cour de Louis XVI

La nuit, la neige a écrit:Notamment un petit cabinet "Pagode" amusant :

Il se dit que le Prince de Galles l'utilisait pour nouer la laisse de son chien à l'un de ses pieds ... celui-ci ayant tendance à marquer son territoire aux quatre coins des salons

Comme je suis en ce moment dans les portraits peints par Angelica Kauffmann, j'en profite pour poster ici une étude du visage de la belle Emma Hamilton :

Portrait of Emma Hamilton
Angelica Kauffmann
Drawing, c. 1791
At lower right, inscribed (partially effaced) "[...] Drawing / by Angelica Kauffman / of Lady Hamilton / sometime aft. 1792" in graphite.
Photo : The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Pour l'instant, je n'ai malheureusement pas retrouvé l'image du portrait abouti peint par l'artiste. Il est en collection privée.
Nous pouvons cependant l'imaginer grâce à cette gravure :


Lady Emma Hamilton as Thalia
After painting by Angelica Kauffman
Engraving by Raphael Morghen, 1797
Photo : Thorvaldsensmuseum.dk

La nuit, la neige a écrit:Comme je suis en ce moment dans les portraits peints par Angelica Kauffmann, j'en profite pour poster ici une étude du visage de la belle Emma Hamilton :

J'adore !
Je comprends que Nelson soit tombé les pattes en croix !

Prochainement présenté en vente aux enchères, je cite l'intéressante note au catalogue (en anglais, désolé) :

- Elisabeth-Louise Vigée Le Brun (Paris 1755-1842)
Portrait of Emma Hart, later Lady Hamilton (1765-1815), as the Cumaen Sibyl
Oil on canvas
54 ½ x 39 in. (138.4 x 99 cm.)
Provenance : (Probably) Timoléon de Cossé-Brissac, duc de Brissac (1775-1848), and by descent in the family until 1919 (...)

Photo : Christie's

Lot Essay

This celebrated portrait of the famed beauty Emma Hart, later Lady Hamilton, stands as a testament to the abilities of one of the most talented female artists in the canon.
Known in two versions, the portrait achieved almost immediate renown and remained, for the rest of her life, Vigée Le Brun’s greatest achievement.

She herself felt that the portrait represented the pinnacle of her career, as it, of all her works, most successfully transcended portraiture, entering into the academically hallowed field of history painting. It also remained one of her favourite works.
In her Souvenirs of 1835, Vigée Le Brun recounted the effect the work had on a group of young artists in Parma:

‘Having spoken of their desire to meet me, they continued by saying that they would very much like to see one of my paintings. Here is one I have recently completed, I replied, pointing to the Sibyl. At first their surprise held them silent; I consider this far more flattering than the most fulsome praise; several then said that they had thought the painting the work of one of the masters of their school; one actually threw himself at my feet, his eyes full of tears.
I was even more moved, more delighted with their admiration since the Sibyl had always been one of my favourite works. If any among my readers would accuse me of vanity, I beg them to reflect that an artist works all his life to experience two or three moments such as the one I have just described.’

Earlier depictions of Emma painted by George Romney, such as Emma Hart as Circe (Rothschild Collection, Waddesdon Manor), a sketch for which is at Tate Britain, and Emma Hart as Ariadne (London, National Maritime Museum), though they may have pertained to depict her in classical guise, remained rooted in the British portraiture tradition.

Emma Hart as Circe
George Romney
Oil on canvas, 1782
Image : Rotschild Collection, Waddesdon Manor, via Wikipedia


Emma Hart as Circe
George Romney
Oil on canvas, c. 1782
Image : Tate Britain


Emma Hart, later Lady Hamilton (1765-1815), also formerly known as 'Lady Hamilton as Ariadne'
George Romney
Oil on canvas, c. 1785-86
Image : National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London.

However, Le Brun’s more mature work can only be correctly understood in respect to the Italian trajectory that led her to artists such as Annibale Carracci, and from him to Domenichino, whose own Cumaean Sybil (Rome, Galleria Borghese) has rightly been identified as one of the direct influences on the present composition.


The Sibilla Cumana (Cumaean Sibyl)
Domenicho Zampieri (Domenichino)
17th Century
Galleria Borghese
Photo : Wikipedia

As evidenced by the present portrait, Le Brun’s wonderfully rich and controlled brushwork lends itself perfectly to the earlier master’s style, which aimed to surpass the imperfections of nature, developing a superior idea del bello (idea of beauty). Indeed, her composition can be said to have bettered even Emma’s legendary beauty, as the artist herself recounted:

‘I went [to the Hamilton residence] everyday, desiring to progress quickly with the picture.
The duchesse de Fleury and the Princess Joseph de Monaco were present at the third sitting, which was the last. I had wound a scarf round her head in the shape of a turban, one end hanging down in graceful folds. This headdress so beautified her that the ladies declared she looked ravishing ... She went to her apartment to change [for dinner], and when she came back … her new costume, which was a very ordinary one … had so altered her to her disadvantage that the two ladies had all the difficulty in the world in recognising her’.

As the French Revolution erupted violently in July 1789, Vigée Le Brun fell into a depression and, realising that her close association with Queen Marie-Antoinette placed her in danger, sought refuge in the homes of relatives.
On 6 October, as the mobs were invading Versailles to take the royal family back to Paris, she fled France in one of the first waves of emigration, departing for Rome with her daughter and her governess, in what would be the start of a twelve-year exile. Although personally unsettling, her years in exile were professionally successful and highly productive as she travelled through Italy, Austria, Russia, Germany, England and Switzerland, welcomed into each European court as a revered survivor of the final days of the Ancien Régime and showered with commissions from foreign aristocrats and fellow refugees alike.

Vigée Le Brun arrived in Naples in April 1790, having received a number of important commissions there arranged through the intervention of Queen Maria Carolina, a sister of Marie-Antoinette.
Over the next two years, the artist shuttled back and forth between Naples and Rome, necessitated by her relentless schedule of portrait commissions.

It was on her third extended stay in Naples, in the spring of 1791, that she began work on the portrait of Emma Hamilton as the Cumaean Sibyl, the work that the artist herself would come to regard as her personal favourite.

It is the last of three portraits that Vigée Le Brun made of the celebrated beauty who, just a few months later, would become the wife of Sir William Hamilton (1730-1803), English Minister to Naples and a renowned archeologist, vulcanologist, and connoisseur of ancient art, whose collection of antiquities, vases and carved gems would eventually form the nucleus of the British Museum.

Vigée Le Brun writes in her Souvenirs (1835) that she met her glamorous sitter only days after she arrived in Naples in the spring of 1790, when Sir William Hamilton appeared at her studio and introduced them:

‘…he requested that my first portrait in the town might be that of an exceptionally beautiful woman whom he introduced to me as Mme. Hart, his mistress; she later became Lady Hamilton, and her beauty brought her great fame.’

A legendary beauty, Emma Hart was, by the time of her first meeting with Vigée Le Brun, one of the most frequently painted models in Europe and famously the subject of dozens of portraits by George Romney, as well as by a host of other painters throughout the continent.
‘The life of Lady Hamilton reads like a romantic fiction,’ wrote Vigée Le Brun.

Emma Hart, Lady Hamilton

Biographie que vous pouvez passer si vous connaissez son histoire.  

Spoiler:

Vigée Le Brun painted three portraits of Emma Hart, works that are as much history paintings as likenesses of their famous sitter.

In the first, Emma is depicted as a Bacchante (or Ariadne) reclining in a grotto by the sea. That work, now in a private collection, was commissioned by Sir William Hamilton and begun shortly after their first meeting in the spring of 1790.


Lady hamilton as Bacchante (or Ariadne)
Oil on canvas, 1792
A faithful small copy by Henry Bone is in the Wallace Collection in London.
Image : Batguano.com

In the second portrait (Cheshire, Port Sunlight, Lady Lever Art Gallery), which the artist retained in her own collection until her death in 1842, Emma is shown at three-quarter-length dancing before Mount Vesuvius with a tambourine in her hand.

Lady Hamilton en Bacchante dansant devant le Vésuve
Oil on canvas, circa 1790
Image : National Museums Liverpool via Wikipedia

For the third and final portrait, which Vigée Le Brun considered one of her masterpieces, the sitter appears as the Cumaean Sibyl, writing a Greek text on a scroll.
In antiquity, the Sibyl of Cumae – named after the site of a town founded by the Greeks northwest of Naples on the coast of Campania – was a seer and oracle who uttered prophesy under the divine inspiration of Apollo.

The three sittings that Emma gave the artist took place in the summer of 1791 at the Hamilton villa at Caserta, 25 miles north of Naples.
Vigée Le Brun finished the portrait somewhat later, following her return to Rome, at which point she signed and dated it ‘1792’.

It appears to have been commissioned by the comtesse du Barry’s lover, the duc de Brissac, then the governor of Paris and head of Louis XVI’s palace guard.

The original painting is today in the Capricorn Foundation at Ramsbury Manor, Wiltshire.


Lady Hamilton as the Cumaean Sibyl
Oil on canvas, 1792
Pas mieux comme image, désolé ! Source : Batguano.com


The present painting is an exact, autograph replica of the prime version.


Photos : Christie's

Why Vigée Le Brun made two versions of the painting, of equally high quality and in quick succession, is unclear.
Joseph Baillio has speculated that the immediate acclaim with which the painting was received may have prompted the artist to keep it for herself, to accompany her from city to city in her exile as her artistic ‘calling card’.

If this theory is correct, the present replica would then have been made to fulfil the commission from Brissac and, indeed, the present canvas was in the Cossé-Brissac collection in Paris until 1919.
It may also have been the version sent to Paris from St. Petersburg to be exhibited in the Salon of 1798; a full-sized version was in the estate sale of the artist’s ex-husband, J.-B.-P. Le Brun, sold at auction on 16 May 1814, lot 80.
However, it is also possible that she kept the signed and dated picture for herself simply because, by the time it was completed and ready for delivery, the duc de Brissac was dead, having been slain in a revolutionary massacre on 9 September 1792.

In any event, Vigée Le Brun kept the prime version, which travelled with her to Austria, Russia, Germany and England, and was used to advertise and promote her unexcelled abilities as a portrait painter; it was only in 1819 that she was coerced into selling it to the duc de Berry.

A superb, bust-length version of the composition (today in a private collection) appears in the list of paintings from her hand that Vigée Le Brun included as an appendix to her memoirs; she presented it as a gift to Sir William Hamilton who, she notes acidly, ‘without hesitating, sold it.’
It appeared in Hamilton’s sale at Christie’s in 1801, lot 28, and was purchased there by Alleyne FitzHerbert, 1st Baron St Helens, who also owned Mme Le Brun’s original Self-Portrait of the Artist Wearing a Straw Hat (1782; Private collection).




Photos : les reporters du Forum de Marie-Antoinette.  

Vigée Le Brun was certainly prompted to paint Emma Hart in historical guises in all three portraits of her by the sitter’s much-admired talent for ‘Attitudes’ and by Hamilton’s enthusiasm for them.
The present painting is virtually a tableau vivant laid down on canvas, with the sitter dressed in ‘Greek’ costume and a turban flatteringly framing her lovely face as she gazes heavenward for inspiration.
The picture’s great success was born of Vigée Le Brun’s ability to convey Emma’s beauty, sensuality and pure animal magnetism with such force while still maintaining a sense of dignity and decorum.
Soon after completing it, she took it with her on a journey to Vienna. Here, she explains :

’I immediately painted the portrait of the daughter of the Spanish Ambassador, mademoiselle de Kaguenek … as well as the Baron and Baroness de Strogonoff. My Sibyl, which people came in their droves to admire, played no small part in convincing people to ask me to paint them’.

If Vigée Le Brun’s later years were filled with more triumphs and continuing professional success, Emma Hart’s years were to be far fewer in number and marked by sorrows.

Suite de la biographie et triste fin de vie de Lady Hamilton

Spoiler:

Note : We are grateful to Joseph Baillio for his assistance with this entry. He will be including the present lot in his forthcoming catalogue raisonné of the paintings of Vigée Le Brun.
Source : Christie's London - Old Masters Evening Sale, 4 July 2019

Merci LNLN pour cette belle annonce !

J'en appelle à l'expertise d'Eléonore : je croyais en effet que la Sybille de Cumes était l'idiote qui avait demandé la vie et non la jeunesse éternelle (), et donc qu'à cause de cela c'était la sybille que l'on représentait toujours fripée et ridée...

Me trompe-je ?

Gouverneur Morris a écrit:
Me trompe-je ?

Non, tu as tout à fait raison, mon cher Momo . En échange de ses faveurs, la Pythie avait demandé à Apollon autant d'années de vie que sa main contenait de grains de sable . En dépit de la parole donnée, elle se refusa au dieu dont la vengeance fut terrible : vieillesse, décrépitude et quasi-immortalité !
J'ajoute que lorsque l'on est à Naples, outre Caserte, Capodimonte, le Vésuve, Herculanum, Pompéi, la villa de Poppée et cette côte amalfitaine de rêve, il faut absolument se rendre à Cumes et pénétrer dans l'antre de la Pythie, s'enfoncer dans cet espèce de souterrain comme un couloir un peu pyramidal, sombre et mystérieux à souhait, propice à tous les délires . J'ai bien aimé !

Merci Eléonore!

La coquette aura refusé de se voir ridée

Vu chez Christie’s mercredi et mentionné par LNLN je ne sais plus où :









Clichés personnels

Gouverneur Morris a écrit:Vu chez Christie’s mercredi et mentionné par LNLN je ne sais plus où :

Juste au dessus, même page...

Merci beaucoup pour ces photos complémentaires !

Présenté prochainement en vente aux enchères :

- Portrait of Emma, Lady Hamilton (1765-1815), as the Magdalene
By George Romney (Dalton-in-Furness, Lancashire 1734-1802 Kendal, Cumbria)
oil on canvas
40 3/8 x 33 ½ in. (102.6 x 85.3 cm.)

Provenance
Commissioned in 1791 by George, Prince of Wales (1762-1830), by whom given in 1810 to the following,
Francis, 2nd Marquess of Hertford (1743-1822), and by descent (...)

Image : Christie's

Lot Essay :

The life of Emma Hart (1765-1815), whose beauty and vivacious character took her from humble origins as the daughter of an illiterate Welsh blacksmith to become the mistress and later wife of the diplomat, antiquarian, collector and vulcanologist Sir William Hamilton (1730-1803), the king's Minister Plenipotentiary at the Bourbon Court in Naples, and later mistress of the celebrated naval hero, Lord Horatio Nelson (1758-1805), was both extraordinary and, in the end, tragic.

The beauty that captured the hearts of both Hamilton and Nelson exerted a similarly magnetic attraction on the imagination of several of the leading artists of the day and none more so than Romney.
He first met Emma when she was still the mistress of his friend, the Hon. Charles Greville (1749-1809), who was later responsible for introducing her to his widowed uncle, Sir William Hamilton.

Greville brought Emma to Romney's studio in 1782 to sit for a portrait and soon became his muse. Romney was deeply affected by Emma’s departure for Naples with Hamilton in 1786 and slumped into an artistic decline.
When they returned to London in 1791 in order to marry, Romney wrote excitedly to his future biographer, William Hayley:

‘at present, and for the greater part of this summer, I shall be engaged in painting pictures from the divine lady. I cannot give her any other epithet, for I think her superior to all womenkind’ (W. Hayley, The Live of George Romney, London, 1809, p. 158).

This painting of Emma as a Magdalene was one of two works commissioned from Romney, together with a Bacchante, by George, Prince of Wales (1762-1830), future George IV of England, during the summer of 1791.

Taken together, the paintings can be seen as an exercise in thematic contrast: personifications of religious emotion against secular, or sorrow against joy (Kidson, op. cit., 2015, p. 684).

The two paintings were still unfinished when Emma left London for Naples in September 1791. On her arrival in Naples, she wrote to the artist enquiring whether the Prince had been to the studio to see the paintings, which suggests that they were near to completion and may also imply that Emma had been somehow instrumental in procuring the commission (op. cit., p. 683).
Romney replied in early 1792 that the Prince had sent Benjamin West, newly elected President of the Royal Academy, to inspect the two paintings and that ‘they were near finished’. Romney eventually received payment for the works in 1796.

In 1810, the paintings were gifted to Francis, 2nd Marquess of Hertford (1743-1822), who served as Lord Chamberlain between 1812 and 1822. The works passed by descent in his family until 1875, when they were sold at Christie’s, catalogued as The Tragic Muse and The Comic Muse.

Sans certitude s'il s'agit du portrait, en pendant, évoqué ici :

Spoiler:

Originally of larger dimensions (120.5 x 154.4 cm.), this painting was reduced at some point after the 1939 sale at Christie’s.
Kidson recorded three smaller versions after this composition (all untraced; op. cit., pp. 684-5, nos. 1494a-c), attesting to the image’s appeal amongst contemporaries.

* Source et infos complémentaires : Christie's - Sale Old Masters and Sculptures, 29 Oct. 2019

« Je confesse que ma misère a eu raison de ma vertu », avouera-t-elle un jour...  

C'est merveilleux, je sens que notre Stéphane national va nous demander de le suivre à travers les palais de Caserte, Capodimonte ... et leurs jardins ...
Nous vous suivrons, jusque sur les flancs du Vésuve !!!  

Le 20 janvier, c'est noté !    



« Nulle destinée ne fut plus extraordinaire que celle-là », a écrit Alexandre Dumas à propos de Lady Hamilton. Et comment imaginer une vie plus romanesque que celle de cette Anglaise, belle à damner un saint ? Sans titre ni fortune, elle connaît une ascension spectaculaire à la fin du siècle des Lumières en épousant l’ambassadeur britannique à Naples, puis en devenant l’amie intime de la reine Marie-Caroline et la maîtresse de l’Amiral Nelson.

Née dans la misère, élevée dans la campagne galloise, rien ne la prédestinait à tutoyer les sommets. La jeune Emma se livre à la prostitution sur les trottoirs humides de Londres, avant de passer entre les bras des jeunes aristocrates sans vergogne. Sa plastique hors normes n’échappe pas au regard des grands peintres de son temps, comme George Romney, dont elle devient la muse pour une trentaine de toiles.



Sa vie bascule en 1786 lorsqu’elle est envoyée faire un séjour à Naples chez Sir William Hamilton, à l’ombre du Vésuve. Homme féru d’art antique, l’ambassadeur britannique s’éprend de la jeune femme aux allures de nymphe. Sous l’égide de son nouveau pygmalion, Emma crée ses « Attitudes », un spectacle de tableaux vivants, aux accents érotiques, où elle redonne chair aux grandes figures de la mythologie. Les voyageurs du Grand Tour, à l’instar de Goethe, en font une égérie célébrée dans toute l’Europe des Lumières.

Devenue une lady, grâce à son mariage avec Sir William, l’irrésistible Emma est introduite à la cour du Royaume de Naples. Son étroite amitié avec la reine Marie-Caroline fait courir d’étonnantes rumeurs. Mais l’amour de sa vie est pourtant bien celui d’un homme – et quel homme ! – l’amiral Nelson, ennemi juré de Napoléon. Le héros brave les pires tempêtes sur son navire mais c’est pour Emma que son cœur chavire.

Comment imaginer alors que cette fulgurante ascension laisse place à une terrible déchéance ? Après la bataille de Trafalgar, le conte de fée tourne au cauchemar. Lady Hamilton entame une véritable descente aux enfers, digne d’une tragédie grecque. Ironie du sort, c’est dans cette France, maudite à ses yeux, à Calais, qu’elle est morte et enterrée dans le plus grand dénuement.

Stéphane Bern et  « Secrets d’Histoire » vous invite à découvrir le destin hors du commun de Lady Hamilton. Des brumes d’Angleterre à la douceur méditerranéenne, des maisons closes de Londres aux ors des palais royaux napolitains, en passant par les villas de Palerme, ce numéro inédit de Secrets d’Histoire vous ouvre les portes de lieux extraordinaires, en compagnie d’une pléiade d’invités d’exception. Un récit haut en couleurs semé d’anecdotes savoureuses pour dépeindre les splendeurs et les misères d’une courtisane.



Avec la participation de :

Gennaro Toscano, conseiller scientifique à la BNF
Gilbert Sinoué, romancier
Mélanie Traversier, historienne et comédienne
Evelyne Lever, historienne
Jean-Paul Desprat, historien
Kate Williams, historienne
Sylvain Bellenger, Directeur du Musée de Capodimonte
Carlo Knight, historien
SAR la Princesse Béatrice de Bourbon des Deux-Siciles
La Marquise Federica de Gregorio
Quintin Colville, curateur du National Maritime Museum deGreenwich
Lily Style, présidente la Emma Hamilton Society

https://www.francetvpro.fr/france-3/communiques-de-presse/34475624