Mathilde Laetitia Wilhelmine Bonaparte, Princesse Française, Princess of San Donato, was a French princess and salonnière. She was a daughter of Napoleon's brother Jérôme Bonaparte and his second wife, Catharina of Württemberg, daughter of King Frederick I of Württemberg.
Portrait by Édouard Dubufe, 1861
Princess Mathilde Bonaparte in 1860, by André-Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri
Inside Princesse Mathilde's mansion, rue de Courcelles (until 1857)
A salon is a gathering of people held by a host. These gatherings often consciously followed Horace's definition of the aims of poetry, "either to please or to educate". Salons in the tradition of the French literary and philosophical movements of the 17th and 18th centuries are still being carried on today.
Réunion de dames, Abraham Bosse, 17th century
"Abbé Delille reciting his poem, La Conversation in the salon of Madame Geoffrin" from Jacques Delille, "La Conversation" (Paris, 1812)
Portrait of Mme Geoffrin, salonnière, by Marianne Loir (National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC)
Italian in exile, Princess Belgiojoso 1832, salonnière in Paris where political and other émigré Italians, including composer Vincenzo Bellini, gathered in the 1830s. Portrait by Francesco Hayez
