WILKIE, Sir David
(b. 1785, Cults, Fife, d. 1841, off Malta)

Josephine and the Fortune-Teller

1837
Oil on canvas, 211 x 158 cm
National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh

Josephine is represented as a young woman in Martinique, hearing the fortune-teller reading her palm predict her elevation to Empress. The subject is taken from Josephine's Memoirs of Napoleon, which appeared in 1829.