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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.
The Taking of Malta, Grand Master Refuses, Antique Madou Lithograph, 1827
£190
$250 · €225
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. Minor nicks to the left edge. Age toning, darker at the edges; handling soiling along the edges and scattered foxing in the margins. Printed image clean.
- Collection
- Sieges & fortresses
- Era
- 1790 to 1815, Napoleonic wars
- Stock no.
- BG-14174-3-35
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 seizure of Malta by the French fleet in June 1798, from Madou's Vie de Napoléon, published at Brussels in 1827. The sheet is lettered PRISE DE MALTE (Capture of Malta) above the image. Boats crammed with troops pull through a running sea beneath the towering bow and figurehead of a ship of the line, an officer in a bicorne standing in the boat at the center, while the shore batteries are bombarded in the smoke of the left distance.
The script caption below the image reads: Le grand-maître ayant refusé l'entrée du port pour toute la flotte, Bonaparte s'en empare de force. In English: The Grand Master having refused the whole fleet entry to the harbor, Bonaparte seizes it by force.
Jean-Baptiste Madou, who lived from 1796 to 1877, was a Brussels lithographer who later made his name as a painter of genre scenes. Vie de Napoléon, published at Brussels in 1827 in two volumes by Marcellin Jobard's Lithographie royale, belongs to the first decade of his career.
The bow of the ship of the line, with its figurehead, headrails and rigging, is drawn in real detail, and the subject records the end of the rule of the Knights of Saint John in Malta. The printing is lithographic, black on wove paper, and the sheet is uncolored.
Condition: Minor nicks to the left edge. Age toning, darker at the edges; handling soiling along the edges and scattered foxing in the margins. Printed image clean.
The oblong format hangs well over a desk or a mantelpiece, and because the plates share one format and one style of lettering, a group bought together reads as a set rather than as an assortment.
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.
