Close-ups
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.
Napoleon's Snow Fort at Brienne, Antique Madou Lithograph, 1827
£185
$245 · €220
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 right corner. Age toning, darker at the edges; handling soiling along the edges and scattered foxing in the margins. Small light flecks in the image, otherwise clean.
- Collection
- Battle scenes
- Era
- 1700 to 1789, Wars of the line
- Stock no.
- BG-14174-3-2
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 boy Napoleon directing a snowball battle at the military school of Brienne, plate 1 from Madou's Vie de Napoléon, published at Brussels in 1827. The sheet is lettered ENFANCE DE NAPOLÉON (Childhood of Napoleon) above the image, numbered N.° 1 at the lower left and signed Lith: de Jobard at the lower right. Schoolboys hurl snowballs under the high wall of the school while the young Bonaparte, in a cocked hat and with his hands clasped, stands at the center, and a cloaked figure sits watching at the right.
The script caption below the image reads: Napoléon naquit à Ajaccio le 15 Août 1769 entra comme pensionnaire de l'État à l'école de Brienne, où son goût pour l'art militaire se développant, il fait construire en neige la 1ère redoute devant laquelle il exerce son génie. Cette campagne finit au dégel. In English: Napoleon, born at Ajaccio on 15 August 1769, entered the school at Brienne as a pupil of the state, where, his taste for the art of war developing, he had the first redoubt built in snow and exercised his genius before it. This campaign ended with the thaw.
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.
The snowball fight at Brienne is the founding anecdote of the Napoleonic legend, and the caption tells it in full. 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 right corner. Age toning, darker at the edges; handling soiling along the edges and scattered foxing in the margins. Small light flecks in the image, otherwise 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.
