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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.
Combat of Tarvis, Battle above the Clouds, Antique Madou Lithograph, 1827
€195
$220 · £165
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. Light wear to the bottom left corner. 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-14174-3-29
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 combat of Tarvis in the Alps in March 1797, from Madou's Vie de Napoléon, published at Brussels in 1827. The sheet is lettered COMBAT DE TARVIS above the image. A general on a rearing white horse gestures toward the heights, a mounted officer in a fur cap rides past him, infantry with a flag push forward at the left behind a low stone wall, and a woman with a bundle and a soldier with a dog follow at the right, all under heavy cloud breaking over the summits.
The script caption below the image reads: L'engagement eut lieu au milieu des neiges et des glaces, sur le sommet des Alpes. Le champ de bataille était audessus des nuages. In English: The engagement took place amid the snow and ice, on the summit of the Alps. The battlefield was above the clouds.
The work appeared at Brussels in 1827 under the imprint of the Lithographie royale de Jobard, in two volumes. 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. The plates are by Jean-Baptiste Madou, then in his early thirties.
Tarvis, today Tarvisio in the far northeast of Italy, guarded the pass into Carinthia, and the cloud piled up behind the riders gives the caption's battlefield above the clouds its visual form. It is printed from the stone in black on a cream wove sheet, the tone built from crayon rather than from cut line, and it is uncolored.
Condition: Light wear to the bottom left corner. Age toning, darker at the edges; handling soiling along the edges and scattered foxing in the margins. Printed image clean.
Framed simply, with a generous mat to let the wide margins show, the plate suits a study, a paneled dining room or a hallway, and it sits naturally beside other Napoleonic material such as campaign maps and portraits of the marshals.
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.
