Imperial crown of Napoleon I.
The imperial crown of Napoleon I was made for the coronation of Napoleon as Emperor of the French in 1804 , but not worn outside of this one ceremony. It is also known as the Crown of Charlemagne or the Crown of Charlemagne .
It is a bow-shaped crown made of gold-plated silver and copper and decorated with gems , cameos and mugelig cut stones. The narrow crown circlet has eight leaf-shaped, serrated prongs that have smaller prongs in their interstices that carry small balls. The stirrups rise steeply from the large prongs and carry a small globe with a cross in their apex as a reference to the divine right to legitimize Napoleon's rule. The gems and cameos sit in bowl-shaped frames on hoops and brackets, three on six brackets and two on the brackets on the front and back. Inside there is a velvet crown, on which a ribbon of broderie is applied behind each bracket . The diameter of the crown is 18.5 cm and the height 25 cm. The Parisian court jeweler Marie-Étienne Nitot et Fils made the crown in 1804. It is now in the Apollo Gallery in the Louvre , Paris . With regard to its archaic design, the crown is deliberately not based on the Empire style of the time of manufacture, but tries to tie in with the tradition of the ancient Roman Empire and the medieval Empire of Charlemagne through the use of antique and early medieval design elements.
literature
- Heinz Biehn : The crowns of Europe and their fate . Limes Verlag, Wiesbaden 1957.