The Duke of Reichstadt Working in the Garden

This painting depicts Napoleon Franz at the age of about four in the park at Laxenburg. He was the only child of Napoleon I and his second wife, the Habsburg archduchess Marie Louise. After the abdication of Napoleon their little son came to live at his grandfather’s court in Vienna, where he received instruction in botany and gardening. He died of a lung disease in the so-called Napoleon Room at the age of only twenty-one.