Nowhere were the changes taking place in mid nineteenth-century France displayed in more concentrated form than at the two international exhibitions held in Paris in 1855 and 1867. The exhibition of 1855, announced by Napoleon III barely four months after the proclamation of the Second Empire, was seen as an opportunity for France to stamp its new identity on the world. It was to be an occasion for France to assert its superiority over other nations and to show off the achievements of the new Empire to the hordes of visitors who were confidently expected to travel from far and wide to see it and to marvel. The exhibition's aims were explicit: as Prince Napoléon, the Emperor's cousin, declared in a speech to the first meeting of the Imperial Commission, its purpose was ‘to illustrate nineteenth-century France and Europe’. But what did it mean, ‘to illustrate […] France‘? How was France to be presented?

From the outset, the 1855 exhibition, like its successor, was closely identified with the imperial family and the new régime. An Imperial Commission under the supervision of Prince Napoléon planned the exhibition. The Emperor set the scheme in motion and officiated at the opening ceremony, his profile was stamped on the exhibition medals, his sculpted bust presided over the main entrance, and he and the Empress made numerous public visits.