Cuba reopens Napoleonic Museum
• Considered one of the five most important of its kind in the world

Amelia Duarte de la Rosa

THE only one of its kind in Cuba, housing one the most important collections from the 18th and 19th centuries preserved in the Western hemisphere, the Napoleonic Museum (San Miguel Street, between Ronda and Mazón, on one side of the University of Havana) reopened its doors this past March 29, after receiving a three-year capital restoration involving specialists from the Cultural Heritage Department of the City Historian’s Office.

Napoleon Princess Alix de Foresta, widow of Luis Marie Bonaparte, a descendent of King Jerome, Bonaparte’s younger brother, was especially invited to the island for the opening.

The Museum, founded on December 1, 1961, occupies a Florentine Renaissance style building which was the home of an Italian-Cuban politician, Orestes Ferrara. The mansion, named La Dolce Dimora by its owner, was built between 1926 and 1929 by the architects Evelio Govantes and Félix Cabarrocas, whose portfolio includes the National Capitolio and the exuberant residence of Catalina Lasa and Juan Pedro Baró (currently the Casa de la Amistad on Paseo).

On its four floors, the building displays almost 8,000 items, most of them dating back 100-plus years and fundamentally related to the epoch of the French Revolution through the Second Empire. An extraordinary collection of books in French, English and Spanish in the specialized library on the fourth floor; as well as suits, weapons, military equipment, furniture, coins, historic and decorative objects, including pieces crafted by those who were considered the best cabinet makers, bronze metal workers, gold and silversmiths in the world, are on view in the Museum’s various rooms.

Various pictures, engraved prints and sculptures are displayed on the walls and spaces of the elegant galleries, reflecting different moments in the life of Emperor Napoleon I created by Louis Tocqué, Jean-Marc Nattier, Nicolas de Largillière, Jean Baptiste Regnault; Françoise Flameng, Andrea Appiani and Robert Léfèvre, among other artists.

Exhibits are distributed in the grand hall on the first floor, which offers a panorama of the French monarchy and a new Weapons Room, formerly the Museum’s activities room, a large mezzanine area on the second floor, which shows the Bonapartes transformed into an imperial family, and the third level, exhibiting personal items and possessions of the man imprisoned on the island of Saint Helena, the renovated building has reopened in all of its splendor after detailed repairs to its carpentry, glass fittings, decorations, tapestries, plaster, flooring, lighting and technical installations.

The museum display includes among its most significant assets Napoleon’s death mask, brought by Dr. Francesco Antommarchi, the last doctor to care for the emperor on Saint Helena, who died in Santiago de Cuba; a bronze, glass and wooden telescope used by Napoleon; a frock coat from when he was first consul; a two-cornered hat and his watch, a recent donation to the institution, displayed for the first time in the third floor bedroom.

With its reopening, the Napoleonic collection —with treasures from the collection of the sugar magnate Julio Lobo, to which other pieces have been added, donated, purchased or recovered by the state —presents silverware found hidden in the walls of the third floor during restoration efforts.

Of unequaled historic and cultural value, the Napoleonic Museum has returned to recreate the history of an era of 200 years ago. It is open to the public from 9:30am to 5pm, Tuesday through Saturday, and Sundays from 9:30am to 12:30pm.

"One hundred and ninety years after the death of Napoleon Bonaparte, a monument to the man who, without doubt, was one of the most important figures in modern history, heir to the French Revolution which shook the world, has been preserved and renovated on a Caribbean island.

That is how Havana City Historian Eusebio Leal assessed the importance of the Napoleonic Museum during the reopening ceremony on March 29.

Attending the event were José Ramón Fernández, Vice President of the Council of Ministers; Culture Minister Abel Prieto and Higher Education Minister Miguel Díaz-Canel; Princess Alix de Foresta, widow of Prince Napoleon and head of the imperial family of France, who described the museum as an "exceptional work;" Jean Mendelson, French ambassador to Cuba; and members of the diplomatic corps, restorers and researchers.

Leal, who also thanked the specialists from the Cultural Heritage Department of his office, explained the origins of the museum showcase —primarily from the collection of sugar magnate Julio Lobo— and highlighted the donation, for the occasion, of the porcelain pieces from the imperial family’s private collection, and Napoleón’s gold watch, exhibited for the first time, and donated by President Raúl Castro in honor of the memory of his wife Vilma Espín.