[MEXICO] (7) Second Mexican Empire, Maximilian I, Generals and Leadership

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Day 2: Early & Historic Americana

By Fleischer's Auctions

Oct 10, 2025

Set Reminder 2025-10-10 09:00:00 2025-10-10 09:00:00 America/New_York Bidsquare Bidsquare : Day 2: Early & Historic Americana https://www.bidsquare.com/auctions/fleischers-auctions/day-2-early-historic-americana-19250
Day one of Fleischer's 2025 Fall Premier auction includes early American artifacts, documents, signatures, ephemera, and weaponry. Rare material relating to African American history is featured, as well as fine examples of antique photography. Fleischer's Auctions info@fleischersauctions.com

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• Lot Description

  Six (6) CDVs and one (1) cabinet card related to Maximilian I (1832 - 1867) and the Second Mexican Empire. Views include:

   

  1. After Jean Paul Laurens (1838-1921). Les Derniers Moments de Maximilien, Empereur du Mexique. No. 1509. Albumen cabinet card after the original painting. Paris, France: Braun et. Co., n.d. Publisher's imprints to mount recto & verso. Artist, title, and number additionally printed to verso. Modern pencil inscription to verso. 

   

  A fine cabinet card after the 1882 painting by Jean Paul Laurens, interpreting the events preceding the execution of Emperor Maximilian I by firing squad. Currently in the holdings of the Hermitage Museum (St. Petersburg, Russia), the work depicts a remarkably calm Maximilian, painted from the Emperor's death mask, contrasted with the distraught priest who had come to take his last confession and a kneeling servant. 

   

  2. Half-length oval albumen CDV studio portrait of Prince Felix of Salm-Salm. Period ink identification to verso in Spanish, along with modern pencil identification. 

   

  Prince Felix of Salm-Salm (1828-1870) served in Maximilian's army following his service as a colonel with the Union during the American Civil War and before being killed in action while serving his native Prussia during the Franco-Prussian War. He was Emperor Maximilian's aide-de-camp and received the same sentence of death by firing squad as the Emperor in 1867. He was released from custody, however, after the successful petition of his wife. 

   

  3. Full-length standing albumen CDV studio portrait. Period ink signature to mount recto, "Yours Truly - J Togus". Pencil inscription to verso: "with Gen Ortega / (aide de camp of / General Ortega)". 

   

  Identified as an aide-de-camp of Republican General Jesús González Ortega (1822-1881), a Mexican soldier and politician who was a notable ally of President Benito Juárez. 

   

  4. Three-quarter length albumen CDV studio portrait of Colonel Paulino Gomez Lamadrid. Mexico: L. Veraza, n.d. Photographer's imprint to verso. Period ink identification alongside modern pencil identification to verso. 

   

  Under the command of General Leonardo Marquez, Colonel Lamadrid (d. 1867) oversaw a battalion of Cazadores, effectively light infantry. He was ambushed by Republican forces en route to the city of Cuernavaca while marching at the head of his soldiers and would succumb to his gunshot wounds. 

   

  5. Full-length standing albumen CDV studio portrait of Franz Graf Thun-Hohenstein. Mexico, Aubert y Cia, [1860s]. Photographer's imprint to recto and verso. Period ink identification alongside modern pencil identification to verso. 

   

  Franz Graf Thun-Hohenstein (1826 - 1888), not to be confused with the similarly-named Austro-Hungarian minister-president, had accrued some 20 years of military experience by the time he was approached in 1864 to lead the Austrian Volunteer Corps in Imperial Mexico. He received the Commander's Cross of the Guadalupe Order but was constantly at odds with the French command and butted heads with Emperor Maximilian himself. When the foreign legions were concentrated into a national Mexican army in 1866, General Thun returned to Austria. 

   

  6. Full-length standing albumen CDV studio portrait of an unidentified French officer in Maximilian's Imperial Army. Mexico: A. P. Halsey, n.d. Photographer's imprint to recto. Modern pencil inscription to verso. 

   

  7. Full-length standing albumen CDV studio portrait of Charles Loysel (alt. Loisel). Period ink identification to verso in Spanish, along with modern pencil identification. Mexico: Aubert y Cia, [1860s]. Photographer's imprint to recto and verso. Period ink identification alongside modern pencil identification to verso. 

   

  Charles-Joseph-Marie Loysel (1825-1889), identified here as the "head of Maximilian's military cabinet," served as an aide-de-camp to the Emperor in the 1860s. He was found to be the intended recipient of hundreds of unsent letters penned by a paranoid Empress Charlotte in the wake of Maximilian's execution.

   

  Maximilian (1832-1867) was an Austrian archduke, the younger brother of Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria, who became the Mexican Emperor of the Second Mexican Empire from 1864 until his execution by the Mexican Republic on 19 June 1867. 

   

  After Mexican independence in 1821, liberal and conservative parties emerged, including a monarchist faction. In 1859, Maximilian was approached by an envoy of Mexican monarchists offering him the throne. With a pledge of French military support, he accepted the crown of Mexico on 10 April 1864. 

   

  During his reign, he sought to implement liberal policies at the cost of his conservative backers. At the end of the American Civil War, the United States began to provide aid to Benito Juárez, whom they still recognized as the legitimate head of state. The French armies began to withdraw in the face of renewed US vigor in enforcing the Monroe Doctrine. The monarchy collapsed, and he was captured, tried, and executed in June 1867. 

   

  [Photography, Early Photography, Historic Photography, Daguerreotypes, Ambrotypes, Tintypes, Cased Images, Union Cases, Albumen Photographs, CDVs, Carte de Visites, Cartes de Visite, Carte-de-visite, Cartes-de-visite, CDV, Cabinet Cards, Stereoviews, Stereocards] [Mexico, Mexican History, Second Mexican Empire, Napoleon III, Monroe Doctrine, Restored Republic, Benito Juarez, Monarchism, Monarachists]

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