Making of ‘The Shirt of the Emperor, Worn During his Execution‘ (by François Aubert, 1867), 2017

The story behind the photograph…

In October 1863, Ferdinand Maximilian Joseph – second son of Archduke Franz Karl, Emperor of Austria – took the fateful decision to accept Napoleon III’s offer to become Emperor Maximilian I of Mexico. His regime was unstable from the start. Loyalists and republicans soon clashed, and on 15 May 1867 the emperor was captured. Following a court-martial, he was sentenced to death. The French photographer, François Aubert (1829–1906), who had settled in Mexico in 1860 and become a regular photographer of the emperor and his court, did not have authorization to photograph the execution. However, he photographed the emperor’s shirt, stained with blood and riddled with bullet holes from the firing squad. He also photographed the emperor’s embalmed corpse upright in its coffin, and the site of the execution marked with wooden crosses. Copies of these photographs – sold as cartes-de-visite – were purchased in great numbers by the emperor’s opponents and followers alike. It is said that Édouard Manet relied on Aubert’s images for his series of historical paintings on the subject, and Aubert has been credited with playing a part in ushering in the new genre of photojournalism.