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Portrait of Joseph Jerome Simeon (1749-1842)
Portrait of Simeon in uniform of court offical in the Kingdom of Westphalia. Based on the full length portrait, also by Kinson.
Description
This painting shows Simeon in his uniform of as Minister of Justice and the Interior in the Westphalian Government of King Jerome Napoleon. He shown wearing around his neck the cross of the Grand Commander of the Order Westphalia which was created by King Jerome on the 25th December, 1809, and was abolished by Louis XVIII, on the 19th July, 1814. There are a number of paintings that show King Jerome wearing the Grand Commander necklace but the two known paintings of Simeon are the only other examples of someone else wearing the Grand Commanders cross. Only 10 of the Grand Commanders crossed were ever awarded. The red sash Simeon wears was originally painted blue for the Order of Westphalia but Simeon had it repainted to that of the Bavarian order of Saint Hubert after the fall of Napoleon’s Empire to better suite the new political climate.
Provenance
Joseph-Jérôme Siméon → Madeleine-Françoise Garcin, gift by August 1811 → her estate, Lille, 1815 → ?
History & Context
Writing about the full length portrait of Kinson.
The present portrait of Siméon belongs to a documented group of portraits executed by Kinson around 1810–1811. What distinguishes this work from many comparable Napoleonic portraits is the extraordinary body of surviving family correspondence associated with it. In 2009, Pascal Rousselle, husband of a direct descendant of Siméon and researcher of the family archives preserved in the Archives nationales in Paris, provided detailed transcriptions of letters exchanged between Siméon and his son Joseph-Balthazar Siméon between Cassel, Dresden, Paris and Provence.
These letters allow the movement and evolution of the portrait to be reconstructed with unusual precision.
Writing from Cassel on 7 July 1811, Siméon informed his son:
“Mon portrait étant emballé, je me suis décidé à te l’envoyer. Quinson a prétendu qu’il ne fallait pas le laisser trop de temps en caisse de peur qu’il ne jaunisse…”
(“My portrait being packed, I decided to send it to you. Kinson claimed that it should not remain too long in its crate for fear that it might yellow…”)
A second letter of 16 July 1811 notes:
“Mon portrait sera peut-être chez toi lorsque cette lettre te parviendra.”
(“My portrait may perhaps be with you by the time this letter reaches you.”)
The correspondence reveals the existence of multiple portraits by Kinson, including “le grand portrait” and “le petit portrait.” The larger portrait appears to have remained in diplomatic use and served as the basis for the 1813 engraving by Stoelzel. The present work is identified with strong probability as the “petit portrait” repeatedly referenced in the family letters.
Particularly revealing is Siméon’s letter of 18 August 1811:
“C’est à (ta mère) que j’ai donné le petit portrait…”
(“It was to your mother that I gave the little portrait…”)
The surviving correspondence also documents the later history of the portrait after the fall of Napoleon and the Bourbon Restoration. In 1817 and 1818, Kinson himself appears to have retouched the work. Pascal Rousselle observed that the portrait was altered after the Restoration by the addition of the plaque of the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour incorporating Bourbon fleurs-de-lys — a deliberate anachronism, since Siméon had held only the rank of officer of the Legion of Honour in 1811.
This modification transforms the portrait into a fascinating political document recording the adaptation of Napoleonic elites under the restored Bourbon monarchy. Siméon himself commented on the issue in a letter dated 20 January 1818:
“Je n’aurais pas été d’avis que l’on changeât le costume. Ce costume est historique…”
(“I would not have approved changing the costume. This costume is historical…”)
This extraordinary remark reveals Siméon’s awareness that the uniforms and insignia of the Empire had already become politically sensitive historical symbols. The phrase “Ce costume est historique” encapsulates the profound transition occurring in post-Napoleonic France, where former imperial officials negotiated memory, legitimacy and survival under the Restoration.
The provenance of the portrait after its return from Germany also appears traceable through family networks in Provence, possibly through descendants of Constance Laget, Siméon’s nephew and private secretary who accompanied him to Westphalia, or through the Portalis family connected to Napoleon’s minister of religious affairs. The painting’s later emergence in southern France accords closely with these documentary indications.
Today the portrait stands not merely as an image of a Napoleonic administrator, but as a richly documented historical artefact linking art, politics and family memory across one of Europe’s most turbulent eras. Through the survival of both the painting and its associated correspondence, the work offers a rare insight into the personal world of Jérôme Bonaparte’s court at Cassel and the crucial role played by François Gérard Kinson in preserving the likenesses of the Empire’s governing elite.
Marks & Inscriptions
No signature appears on the canvas.
Attribution comes from letter written by Simeon where he talks about this small portrait by KINSON.