A watercolour drawing of the Salle des Cariatides at the Hôtel de Ville in Paris. Queen Victoria and Napoleon III are seen on thrones at the centre of a curtained arcade, with two large chandeliers framed by two arches. Above, a balcony supported by cariatids, with guests looking down. Signed lower left: FESTEAU 1855. The figures are by Jules Worms.

In August 1855 Queen Victoria and Prince Albert spent ten days in Paris, on the invitation of Napoleon III and his wife Eugénie. The historic state visit was intended to celebrate the military alliance between Britain and France in the Crimean War, and followed a visit by the imperial couple to Windsor in April that year. On 23 August there was a municipal ball at the Hôtel de Ville, hosted by Baron Haussmann, Préfet de la Seine, who invited 8000 guests. The architect Victor Baltard supervised the decorations. The Salle des Cariatides adjoined the Grande Galerie des Fêtes (RCIN 920077 and 920079), in which the Ministers of State were presented to the Queen and Emperor.

In January 1856 Baron Haussmann sent an album of 19 watercolours of the ball to Queen Victoria as a souvenir of the occasion. The watercolours were all executed by architectural pupils at the École des Beaux-Arts, all former winners of the Prix de Rome and described by Haussmann as ‘among our most distinguished painters and architects’. The album had an illustrated frontispiece, which is now lost, but is recorded in several photographic copies of the album that were made at the time and distributed among the administrative libraries of Paris. On 4 February Queen Victoria described looking at ‘the fine coloured illustrations, in a magnificent album, with a beautifully emblazoned account of the fine Fête at the Hôtel de Ville. This truly magnificent souvenir of my visit, has been sent to me by the Ville de Paris, through the Emperor’ (Journal, 4 February 1856).

The watercolours were arranged according to the route that Queen Victoria took through the building. During the Franco-Prussian War, the interior of the Hôtel de Ville was largely destroyed, and so these watercolours are a valuable record of those lost rooms.