{"id":73693,"date":"2018-10-03T19:25:46","date_gmt":"2018-10-03T17:25:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.napoleon-cologne.fr\/athenian-of-napoleon-bonaparte\/"},"modified":"2019-11-06T17:49:10","modified_gmt":"2019-11-06T16:49:10","slug":"athenian-of-napoleon-bonaparte","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.napoleon-cologne.fr\/en\/athenian-of-napoleon-bonaparte\/","title":{"rendered":"Athenian of Napoleon Bonaparte"},"content":{"rendered":"

[vc_row row_height_percent=”0″ override_padding=”yes” h_padding=”3″ top_padding=”2″ bottom_padding=”2″ overlay_alpha=”50″ gutter_size=”3″ column_width_percent=”100″ shift_y=”0″ z_index=”0″][vc_column column_width_use_pixel=”yes” gutter_size=”3″ overlay_alpha=”50″ border_color=”color-205196″ border_style=”solid” shift_x=”0″ shift_y=”0″ shift_y_down=”0″ z_index=”0″ medium_width=”0″ mobile_width=”0″ width=”1\/1″ column_width_pixel=”900″][vc_custom_heading text_size=”h1″ text_weight=”200″ text_height=”fontheight-1-6″ text_color=”color-150243″ separator=”yes” sub_reduced=”yes”]While France leaves Ancien Regime to turn in a 19th century full of promises, habits regarding hygiene change slowly. Water takes a new place at the center of daily custom. Vases, basins and Athenian enhance water making it a symbol of freshness, purity and simplicity essential to the most refined people.[\/vc_custom_heading][vc_custom_heading heading_semantic=”h3″ text_size=”h4″ text_weight=”400″ text_color=”color-150243″]Simple use in a sophisticated furniture[\/vc_custom_heading][vc_column_text]We know the meticulous care that Napoleon took to his personal hygiene. In life as in war he promoted efficiency without losing sight of the importance of etiquette: if his ability to live as a soldier made him popular with his troops, his attachment to objects of power made him an experienced politician. This Athenian, a luxury basin for ablutions, admirably fulfilled these two requirements of efficiency and representation. He found it so much to his liking that from the Tuileries at the time of French Consulate to St. Helena, the imperial Athenian will follow the Emperor to the peaks at his fall. On drawings by Charles Percier (1764 – 1838), the tabletmaker Martin-Guillaume Biennais (1764 – 1843) put all his talent at the service of this luxury furniture made of bronze, silver and yew. Elegant gilt bronze swans display majestic wings to support a silver basin carved with reed patterns.[\/vc_column_text][vc_single_image media=”74125″ caption=”yes” media_lightbox=”yes” media_width_percent=”100″ alignment=”center” lbox_title=”yes” lbox_caption=”yes”][vc_column_text]The silver ewer used to pour the water for Napoleon’s ablutions rests on the tablet decorated with dolphin at its angles. While fine bees – emblems of the Emperor – in gilded bronze adorn the Athenian, dolphins, reeds and swans evoke the aquatic world, the freshness of the lakes and rivers, poetic metaphor of the use intended to this piece of furniture.[\/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]