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Framed and on the wall
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Entry into Syria, Bonaparte Gives Up His Horse, Antique Madou Lithograph, 1827
$245
€220 · £185
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-14174-3-44
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 army entering Syria, with Bonaparte giving up his horse to a wounded soldier, from Madou's Vie de Napoléon, published at Brussels in 1827. The sheet is lettered ENTRÉE EN SIRIE in open capitals above the image. The general walks on foot at the center of the column across open sand, while the wounded soldier rides his gray horse, led by a guide with a lance at the left; camels, a stretcher and palms appear behind.
The printed caption below the image reads: Bonaparte s'associe aux fatigues et aux privations de l'armée. Il cède son cheval à un soldat blessé. In English: Bonaparte shares the fatigues and privations of the army. He gives up his horse to a wounded soldier.
Jean-Baptiste Madou, who lived from 1796 to 1877, was the outstanding Belgian lithographer of his generation and later a celebrated painter of genre scenes. His Vie de Napoléon, issued in two volumes at Brussels in 1827 by Marcellin Jobard's Lithographie royale, is among the largest undertakings of his early career, made while lithography was still a young process on the continent.
The general on foot among his men is one of the standing images of the Syrian march of 1799, and the sheet is one of the most sparely drawn in the series, with a wide empty desert sky. The sheet is a crayon lithograph, black on cream wove paper and uncolored, and the modeling of smoke, cloth and sky shows how much Madou could draw from a medium still new in his day.
Condition: Age toning, darker at the edges; handling soiling along the edges and scattered foxing in the margins. Printed image clean.
This is a print that rewards being hung at eye level where the caption can be read, and it makes a natural gift for a reader of Napoleonic history or a collector of military prints.
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.
