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“When I tell them that Napoleon’s older brother spent 17 plus years in Bordentown, New Jersey they are quite amazed. They never heard of such a thing. But he lived there happily and built this fabulous estate,” says biographer Patricia Stroud in the new NJN documentary, Bonaparte’s Retreat.
An influential diplomat and among Napoleon’s closest and most trusted advisors, Joseph became King of Naples and then of Spain. But when Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo, in 1815, Joseph had to escape, in secret, to America, where he settled in Bordentown. He lived in a magnificent estate along the Delaware River, designed elaborate gardens, entertained leading figures of the day, and surrounded himself with the largest and most important collection of European fine and decorative art in America. Jacques Louis David’s famous painting Napoleon Crossing the Alps hung in the drawing room, near works by Canova, Michelangelo, Rubens and Titian.
Joseph, a year older than Napoleon, was tall and handsome, gentle by temperament, well educated and knowledgeable about literature and the arts. He acquired wealth through his marriage and influence through his connections to Napoleon, but did not particularly seek power. He supported Napoleon to the end, yet was privately appalled when his brother declared himself Emperor. Historian Owen Connelly has called Joseph “the Gentle Bonaparte.”
In exile, Joseph came to love the freedoms of America, but decried its lack of culture. He helped sponsor the first professional performances of opera in America, which took place in New York City in the 1820s. He loaned paintings to a number of American museums, including the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. He was a founding supporter of the French-American newspaper, Le Courrier des Etats-Unis for which he contributed numerous articles in defense of his famous brother’s legacy.
Bonaparte’s Retreat is based, in part, on Patricia Stroud’s recent biography, The Man Who Had Been King: The American Exile of Napoleon’s Brother Joseph and the story unfolds through interviews with leading scholars and historians: Owen Connelly, author of The Gentle Bonaparte; Roger Moss, Director of the Athenaeum in Philadelphia and specialist in the decorative arts; Joseph Rischel, Senior Curator of European Art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art; James Turk, a cultural historian formerly at the New Jersey State Museum; and Constance A. Webster, Professor Emerita at Rutgers University, who has written a study of Napoleon’s and Joseph’s gardens in Europe and America. They tell a very lively story. But then, Joseph Bonaparte is a very compelling subject.
While Joseph lived in Bordentown, the curious flocked to his estate, Point Breeze, to meet the ex-King and admire his art collections and landscaped gardens. Cultural historian James Turk points out that “…Americans have always been intrigued by European royalty. In the 1820’s they were as fascinated with Joseph Bonaparte as they were twenty years ago with Prince Charles and Diana.” Joseph thrived on the attention and regularly opened his home to the famous and not-so-famous, including Marquis de Lafayette, Joseph Hopkinson, Nicholas Biddle, Stephen Girard and many others.
After Joseph’s death in 1844, two well-advertised public auctions were held at Point Breeze to dispose of his property. “To this day,” Roger Moss says, ‘people all over New Jersey and Pennsylvania claim to have items from the legendary auctions at Joseph’s estate. A spoon, a tablecloth, a chair may have been handed down from generation to generation.”
Shot in high-definition by award-winning producer Eric Schultz, Bonaparte’s Retreat brings together art and architecture, social and political history to captures the fascinating, little known story of “the gentle Bonaparte.” |
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Portrait of Joseph Bonaparte
Joseph Bonaparte’s mansion near Bordentown
Map of the residence and park grounds of Joseph Bonaparte’s mansion near Bordentown
Portrait of Joseph Bonaparte
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