Portrait (inachevé) de l'impératrice Joséphine

This unfinished portrait of the Empress Joséphine at Malmaison, dated around 1800, provides an invaluable document of Prud'hon's working method and the technical stages through which he built his finished portraits. The canvas, now at the Musée national de Malmaison, was likely made during or shortly before the 1805 Louvre portrait campaign, though the recorded date of 1800 may reflect an earlier sitting. Unfinished works allow viewers to study the under-layers of Prud'hon's technique: the warm, toned ground, the initial placement of figures, and the progressive development of luminosity through glazing. The Malmaison museum's acquisition of this work alongside the château that was Joséphine's own residence and personal legacy creates a resonant relationship between portrait subject and location.

The unfinished state reveals Prud'hon's working sequence: a warm toned ground, broadly established shadow masses, and the progressive addition of light glazes that would, in the finished work, create the seamless atmospheric luminosity of his completed surfaces. Passages at varying stages of completion allow direct comparison between the early blocking-in and the final state.