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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.
March in the Desert, Egypt, an Ocean of Sand, Antique Madou Lithograph, 1827
$250
€225 · £190
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. A brown stain in the upper left margin. Printed image clean.
- Collection
- Battle scenes
- Era
- 1790 to 1815, Napoleonic wars
- Stock no.
- BG-14174-3-37
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's march across the Egyptian desert, from Vie de Napoléon, published at Brussels in 1827. The sheet is lettered MARCHE DANS LE DÉSERT in capitals above the image. Bonaparte stands on foot at the center with his arm stretched out toward the column, a collapsed soldier at his feet, while gun teams and wagons labor through the sand at the left, mounted officers and colors move along the skyline and infantry trudge past at the right under a high, empty sky.
The printed caption below the image reads: Quand l'aurore vint éclairer cet Océan de sable, le découragement s'empara de l'armée. In English: When the dawn came to light up this ocean of sand, discouragement took hold of the army.
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.
In July 1798 the army marched from Alexandria toward the Nile across open desert in the full heat of summer, short of water and harassed by Mameluke horsemen, and the march became a byword for the hardships of the Egyptian expedition. The whole upper half of the sheet is given over to pale, empty sky. 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. A brown stain in the upper left margin. 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.
