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Framed and on the wall
Frame and rooms are illustrations of how the piece could look; it is sold unframed unless the description says otherwise.
Battle of Bassano, the Dog on the Field, Antique Madou Lithograph, 1827
£165
$220 · €195
Original print, not a reproduction.
Ships worldwide from the Netherlands, flat, insured and tracked. 14-day returns.
- Date
- 1827
- Technique
- Lithograph
- Coloring
- Uncolored
- Condition
- Good. Age toning, darker at the edges; handling soiling along the edges and scattered foxing in the margins. Printed image clean.
- Collection
- Battle scenes
- Era
- 1790 to 1815, Napoleonic wars
- Stock no.
- BG-14174-3-19
What the condition grades mean
- Excellent
- Bright and clean, with no faults worth mentioning.
- Very good
- Only light signs of age, such as faint toning.
- Good
- Normal signs of age for a sheet of this period: toning, some foxing, small marks or neat old repairs.
- Fair
- Clear faults such as staining, tears or repairs, priced to match.
Every fault we see is written in the condition note, and the whole sheet is shown uncropped in the photos.
An original antique lithograph of the battle of Bassano, from Vie de Napoléon, published at Brussels in 1827. The sheet is lettered BATAILLE DE BASSANO in capitals above the image. Bonaparte on a white horse has halted among his mounted staff at the edge of a wood after the action; in the foreground a dog sits howling over the body of its master among the dead, a broken wheel and scattered arms, while an officer at the right writes in a notebook.
The printed caption below the image reads: Mes amis, Retirons-nous, dit-il, ce chien nous donne une leçon d'humanité. In English: My friends, let us withdraw, he said; this dog is teaching us a lesson in humanity.
Vie de Napoléon appeared at Brussels in 1827, in two volumes, from the Lithographie royale de Jobard. Its title describes a text written by a society of men of letters from the new documents dictated and corrected at Saint Helena by Napoleon himself, and its lithographs are credited to Jean-Baptiste Madou (1796 to 1877), then at the start of a long career as Belgium's leading genre painter.
Bassano was fought on 8 September 1796 during the second attempt to relieve Mantua. The dog keeping watch over its master is one of the recurring images of Napoleonic sentiment, and here it is the whole point of the plate, since the caption gives the general's remark rather than any account of the battle. It is a crayon lithograph printed in black, uncolored as issued, with the lettered title above the image and the caption in script below.
Condition: Age toning, darker at the edges; handling soiling along the edges and scattered foxing in the margins. Printed image clean.
A single sheet frames well in a plain dark molding with a wide off white mat, and three or four plates from the series hung together make a coherent wall for a study, a library or a hallway.
This is an original antique print, not a modern reproduction. This item is sold unframed. Any framed or interior images are shown for presentation and inspiration only, unless the listing explicitly states that the item is sold framed.
