Château de Bois-Préau, château in Rueil-Malmaison, France

Château de Bois-Préau is a 19th-century French château in Rueil-Malmaison, its pale cream stone facade two storeys high above a basement, with a projecting central bay, white-shuttered windows and a dark slate roof. A stone staircase with a low balustrade leads to the central door, whose upper window opens onto a small wrought-iron balcony. It stands in a 16.1-hectare English-style park, once linked to that of Malmaison, with an ornamental basin, an artificial river and bicentennial trees including Byzantine hazels.

Frédéric Léonard and his son Frédéric-Pierre, printers and booksellers to the King, bought the land in 1696 and built a large house with water features between 1697 and 1700. In 1810 Joséphine de Beauharnais finally bought Bois-Préau from the heirs of Anne-Marie Julien, found drowned in the park's pond in 1808, and had the walls separating it from Malmaison demolished. In 1854-1855 Baron Édouard Rodrigues-Henriques rebuilt most of the central block after pulling down the wings.

The château has housed a national museum since 1958, an annex of the Malmaison museum. It first covered Napoleon's captivity and death on Saint Helena and the return of his remains; it now hosts temporary exhibitions. Its library is to receive the thousands of boxes bearing Napoleon's effigy given in 1958 by Princess Marie Bonaparte.

The château museum is closed for renovation work, so visits focus on the 16.1-hectare English-style park, an extension of the Malmaison forest. The grounds hold an ornamental basin, an artificial river and bicentennial trees, among them Byzantine hazels. The park was once linked to the Malmaison estate, and Josephine had its gardens redesigned by Louis-Martin Berthault.

The park's Josephine statue by Gabriel Vital Dubray dates from 1865 and entered the museum collections in 1932. In 2021 it was replaced by a copy because of its deterioration; the original is now kept in the reserves. Three other sculptures stand in the grounds: L'Aigle, La Liseuse and La Pensée.