Josephine and the Fortune-Teller

Josephine and the Fortune-Teller
Artist	David Wilkie
Year	1837
Type	Oil on canvas, genre painting
Dimensions	211 cm × 158 cm (83 in × 62 in)
Location	Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh

Josephine and the Fortune-Teller is an 1837 history painting by the British artist David Wilkie.[1] It depicts a story about the young Joséphine de Beauharnais visiting a fortune teller on her native island of Martinique, who predicts her future in France as the wife of Emperor Napoleon.[2]

The painting was produced at the suggestion of William Knighton and was commissioned by the politician John Abel Smith.[3] The previous year Wilkie had produced a painting featuring Josephine's husband Napoleon and Pius VII at Fontainebleau.

It was exhibited at the Royal Academy's Summer Exhibition in London.[4] Today the painting is in the collection of the Scottish National Gallery, in Edinburgh, having been purchased in 1949.[5]

References

1. Johnson p.277
2. Tromans p.285
3. Noon & Bann p.148
4. Tromans p.14
5. https://www.nationalgalleries.org/art-and-artists/5579

Bibliography

• Johnson, Edward Dudley Hume. Paintings of the British Social Scene: From Hogarth to Sickert. Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1986.
• Noon, Patrick & Bann, Stephen. Constable to Delacroix: British Art and the French Romantics. Tate, 2003.
• Tromans, Nicholas. David Wilkie: The People's Painter. Edinburgh University Press, 2007.