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Title:
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Napoleon Bonaparte on Horseback in Coronation Robes
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Artist: |
Baron Carlo Marochetti
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Napoleon is shown wearing his coronation robes, though in real life he was never known to have ridden a horse so dressed. He wears an ermine trimmed mantle, embroidered with bees, and with a very high collar. On his head is a laurel crown. He wears round his neck the great chain of the Legion of Honour and in his right hand holds a sceptre crowned with an eagle.
This plaster model was presented to the Walters Art Gallery by Mr and Mrs Nelson Gutman in 1948 as a work of Antoine-Louis Barye. However it bears an inscription, "vue et approuvé. Visconti". Since Barye is not known to have collaborated with the architect Visconti, Isabelle Leroy-Jay Lemaistre of the Louvre has concluded that this must be a model produced by Marochetti for the equestrian statue which the State had officially commissioned him to produce for the Courtyard of the Invalides, on 22 March 1842. ( Isabelle Leroy-Jay Lemaistre, "Napoléon aux Invalides", in cat. of exh., Art ou Politique? Arcs, statues et colonnes de Paris, Paris 1999, .pp.133-134)
In 1840, through a combination of Court and ministerial favour, Marochetti had been asked to design a tomb for Napoleon for the interior of the Invalides. Although two projects were produced by him, the news that Marochetti, a French citizen but born in Italy, was to get this prestigious national commission, created such a furore that the government was forced to rethink its plans and launch an open competition. The exhibition of the entries, which did not include any submission from Marochetti, was opened on 27 Oct 1842 at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris, and on 23 Nov. a commission was set up to report on the results. This report was published in the Moniteur universel on 16 Jan. 1842. The commission declined to proclaim any particular project the winner, but, on the basis of his extremely thoroughly presented entry, the architect L.-T. Visconti was given the commission for the tomb itself. At the same time,the government endorsed its original choice of Marochetti by commissioning from him a separate, outdoor equestrian statue.
Visconti originally intended that the equestrian statue should show the Emperor in military costume, but in 1843 a government commission decided to change the site of the statue from the courtyard to the Esplanade in front of the Invalides. This was done in conformity with the wishes of Marshal Soult, Minister for War and director of the Hôtel des Invalides, who also supported Visconti's decision with regard to the costume. However,the government commission determined that the Emperor should be dressed "with the attributes of sovereignty". Marochetti was given a new commission for statue and reliefs on 19 Sept. 1843.
Marochetti produced his model, but the completion of the work hung fire, and the statue had still not been cast when the government of Louis Philippe was overthrown in February 1848. A commission under Ledru-Rollin was set up by the government of the shortlived Second Republic to look into all aspects of the Invalides project, but its findings on the equestrian statue did not result in any action being taken. Marochetti's model remained at Vaux after he himself had left France to live and work in England. It was still there when the commission was finally annulled by the government of Napoleon III on 10 Dec. 1853.
The Baltimore model differs from some of the earlier drawn projects by Marochetti relating to this project in showing the horse in a walking position. Though it is supposed that the equestrian statue surmounting Marochetti's first project for the tomb was in a mouvementé mode, a more calm and monumental approach appears to have been adopted by Marochetti for his second tomb project. Equally,one of the drawings for the equestrian statue for the Esplanade in the Archives Nationales (F. 21-735) persists with the static mode. This, which shows on the statue's base a relief of the Return of Napoleon's Ashes to France, is recorded as having been submitted on 10 June 1844. This was a type of equestrian composition which Marochetti had first encountered in Britain, where it was a novelty first introduced by Sir Francis Chantrey. Marochetti took a leaf out of Chantrey's book by adopting the standing mode for his equestrian statue of the Duke of Wellington for Glasgow. However, it is likely that to French eyes such an equestrian composition appeared something of a solecism, and it seems likely that another drawing in the files in the Archives (again F. 21-735), which shows an equestrian figure on a very high plinth and with the horse in a walking mode was an attempt to conform to a more conventional typology.The French art historian, Marcel Vicaire, has surmised that this revision may have taken place towards 1848. The drawing relates closely in pose and costume to the Baltimore statuette. The inscription on the Baltimore model certainly appears to confirm that it is related to the Invalides project. (see M. Vicaire, "Les projets de Marochetti pour le tombeau de l'Empereur Napoléon", Bulletin de la Société de l'histoire de l'art français (1974), 1975: 145-152, and M.P.Driskel, As befits a Legend: Building a Tomb for Napoleon 1840-1861, Kent (Ohio) and London, 1993)
A small edition in bronze of this statuette was made, of which a version, mounted on an elaborately ornamented plinth, with seated nude youths at the corners, was recently offered on the Parisian art market (Galerie André Lemaire, Oct.-Nov. 2004, pp.26-29), . Another example in plaster with wax additions, from the collection of the Fabius brothers was sold at Sotheby's (26 October 2011 - Lot 253), still with the attribution to Barye. Another example is said to be in the Dosne Thiers Foundation in Paris.
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Material(s): |
Plaster
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Medium: |
Unassigned |
Finish: |
- |
Technique: |
Modelled |
Genre: |
Unassigned
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Location: |
Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore, Baltimore, Baltimore, USA
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Colours: |
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Year: |
1848 |
Height: |
0 metres |
Width: |
0 metres |
Depth: |
0 metres |
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Key: |
2055 |
Acc. No.: |
2055 |
Col. No.: |
2055 |
Number of views: |
3602 |
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