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1806, Paris
| Name: | Exposition publique des produits de l’industrie française (4th) |
| Dates: | 25 Sep – 19 Oct 1802 |
| Days: | Twenty-four |
| Venue: | Esplanade des invalides – building some 124 temporary structures |
| Theme: | Industry was afforded the same honour as military victories. Le Moniteur newspaper listed gold medallists alongside victories, because the Emperor saw both as vital for national success. |
| Exhibitors: | 1,422 exhibitors drawn from 104 départements, arguably more international |
| Awards: | 610 |
| Visitors: | No data |
| Legacy: | The implication was that indsutrialists had to play their part in securing French progress. |
The industrial revolution led to a flood of British goods into Europe. French work traditions and practices held up progress in France. Under Napoléon’s rule the three expositions (1801, 1802 and 1806) were organised with the clear goal of advancing the interests of French industry. Specifically to modernise French industry and preferably to the detriment of British industry. However, the Napoleonic Wars, from 1803 – 1815, disrupted international trade.
Napoleon decreed the 1806 exposition on 15 February 1806 after his return from the Austerlitz campaign, it was in part to celebrate his victories by exhibiting the fruits of peace. It was organised by Chaptal’s successor as Minister of the Interior, Jean-Baptiste de Nompère de Champagny.
This fourth event, held under the First Empire had outgrown the Louvre. Instead it built some 124 structures on the Esplanade des Invalides. It was run for twenty-four days, from 25 Sep to 19 Oct. There were 1,422 exhibitors from an expanded one-hundred-and-four départements.
Esplanade des Invlaides venue
These were divided into thirty-five categories (the 1802 event had just fifteen) – wool, cloths, hats, silks, lace, hemp and linen, cotton, hosiery, fabrics imitating pictures, papers, tinctures, leathers and skins, iron and steel, copper, lead, hardware, military items, mechanical items, precision machines, printing, engraving, mosaics, combustion equipment, chemicals, glassware, pottery, goldsmiths, filigree work, bronzework, varnish work, cabinet-makers, tableware, musical instruments…
The exhibits received some 610 awards. There were two special awards created at this event following on from inititatives in the 1802 Exposition. One was for products exhibited by poorhouses and those produced by ‘houses of detention and correction’.
 |  Source: philamuseum.org |
One award was made for this wood-block wallpaper, entitled ‘Native Peoples of the Pacific’. It was designed by Jean-Gabriel Charvet and manufactured by Joseph Dufor et Cie. The panoramic images were drawn from accounts of European voyages to the Pacific undertaken in the late eighteenth century by French and British explorers, iincluding Captain James Cook, who made three expeditions to the area between 1768 – 1779. The native people from various Pacific islands, shown in distinctive costumes.
A stone event planned for May was merged with this one, displaying stones and marbles for architectural use.
Notably, a confectioner, Nicolas Appert (1749-1841), presented a method of preserving food. He invented airtight food preservation and became known as the ‘father of canning’. Appert described his invention as a way of conserving all kinds of food substances in containers. He established the first food bottling factory in the world.
Jean-Baptiste Launay presented two cast iron bridges for the capital [the world’s first cast-iron bridge was the ‘Iron Bridge’ across the River Severn in Shropshire, it had opened in 1787].
A model for the Paris wheat market was on show featuring a cast-iron dome. The Halle aux blés (Corn Exchange) in central Paris was designed by Nicolas Le Camus de Mézières with a circular open-air central courtyard and a double staircase, it was built in 1763–67 for use by grain traders. It was capped by a wooden dome in 1783, then by an iron dome in 1811.
It might be argued that this event was more international, but this was because ‘France’ now included areas of Mulhouse Alsace (on the Rhine), of Belgium and parts of Northern Italy.
There was discussion of the next exhibition being planned for 1809, but the continental blockade and various military setbacks meant the show would not be held for thirteen years.
Forward to 1811, Munich DE – Central Landwirtschaft Feyer (Central Agricultural Festival)
Forward to next Paris entry – 1819
Back to 1802, Paris FR – Exposition Publique des Produits de l’Industrie française (3rd)
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