All audiences
From 17 September 2021 to 06 March 2022
Tuesday to Sunday 11am - 6pm
Wednesday nights until 9pm
Exhibition - In Napoleon I’s Footsteps at the Monnaie de Paris
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From 17 September 2021 to 06 March 2022Exhibition: In Napoleon I’s Footsteps at the Monnaie de Paris
The exhibition takes place in the museum's galleries and sheds light on the emergence of the franc germinal as well as on the workings of the Napoleonic legend, where medals and symbols played a decisive role in establishing power.
The First Consul Bonaparte came to the Monnaie de Paris on 12 March 1803 to visit the money-minting workshops. He wanted to ensure that everything was ready, from a manufacturing point of view, before announcing the creation of the franc germinal, which he did a few days later in the laws of 28 March–7 April 1803. As part of this official visit, a gold token featuring his portrait was struck for him. This effigy, engraved by Pierre-Joseph Tiolier, would serve as the model for the new franc germinal. On the reverse, the Republican calendar date of 21 Ventôse Year XI commemorates this key moment in the institutional history of the Monnaie de Paris.
Visitors are invited to follow ‘In the footsteps of Napoleon I’ as they stroll throughout the entire Monnaie de Paris site, a place where money has been minted since it was built in 1775 and whose neoclassical décor is marked by the emblematic figure of the imperial eagle and the Emperor's monogram.
The exhibition comprises 400 works: coins and medals and tools for minting them, but also sculptures, paintings, drawings, decorative objets d’art and archive documents. The exhibits come from the heritage collections of the Monnaie de Paris and from other major French state-held collections: Musée du Louvre, Musée de l’Armée, Musée Carnavalet, Institut de France, Fondation Napoléon, Musée du Château de Fontainebleau, Châteaux de Malmaison et Bois-Préau, Château de Versailles, Musée Thomas Henry de Cherbourg, Musée Denon de Chalon-sur-Saône and Archives du ministère des Finances.
The works are organised by various themes, enabling visitors to see and understand how Napoleon I relied on coins and medals to establish his power and fame.
From the launch of the great monetary reform of the franc germinal in 1803 to the construction of the ‘Napoleonic legend’ via the skilful work of engravers overseen by Dominique Vivant, Baron Denon, from the Consulate to the Empire, then under the July Monarchy and the Second Empire, the works also highlight the place of Monnaie de Paris: a state institution at the forefront of research in the development of money-manufacturing techniques but also a centre for the assertion of power – a truly diplomatic tool for European sovereigns and ambassadors.
Curator: Beatrice Coullare, Head of Conservation at the Musée de la Monnaie de Paris.
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