The ruff came back in Napoleonic court dress. The next two pictures are the entire portrait this was taken from and a larger detail from the same portrait. Marie Josephine Rose Tascher de la Pagerie was born in Trois-Ilets, Martinique on June 23 1763 but baptised in Martinique, to a slave-owning family that owned a sugar plantation. She was a daughter of Joseph-Gaspard de Tascher, chevalier, seigneur de la Pagerie, lieutenant of Troupes de Marine, and his wife, the former Rose-Claire des Vergers de Sanois, whose maternal grandfather was English. The family struggled financially when hurricanes destroyed their estate in 1766. Edmee, Josephine's paternal aunt, had been the mistress of Francois, vicomte de Beauharnais, a French aristocrat. When Francois' health began to fail, Edmee arranged the advantageous marriage of her niece Catherine-Desiree to Francois' son, Alexandre, Vicomte de Beauharnais. This marriage would be highly beneficial for the Tascher family, because it would keep the de Beauharnais money in their hands; however, 12-year-old Catherine died on October 16, 1777, before even leaving Martinique for France. In service to their aunt Edmee's goals, Catherine was replaced by her older sister Josephine. In October 1779, Josephine went to Europe with her father. She married Alexandre on December 13, 1779, in Noisy-le-Grand. Although their marriage was not extremely happy, they had two children: a son, Eugene de Beauharnais (1781 - 1824), and a daughter, Hortense de Beauharnais (1783 - 1837), who married Napoleon's brother Louis Bonaparte in 1802.

On March 2, 1794, during the Reign of Terror, the Committee of General Security ordered the arrest of her husband. He was jailed in the Carmes prison. Considering Josephine as too close to the counter-revolutionary financial circles, the Committee ordered her arrest on April 19, 1794. A warrant of arrest was issued against her on 2 Floreal, year II (April 21, 1794), and she was imprisoned in the Carmes prison until 10 Thermidor, year II (July 28, 1794). She was freed thanks to the trial of Robespierre. Her husband, accused of having poorly defended Mainz in 1793, and considered an aristocratic "suspect", was sentenced to death. He was guillotined on July 23, 1794, one year after the Siege of Mainz, together with his brother Augustin, on the Place de la Revolution (today's Place de la Concorde) in Paris.