- Museum number
- 1868,0808.12718
- Title
- Object: Review of the French Troops on their returning march through Smolensko.
- Description
-
Apparently an adaptation from a Russian print, see No. 11995. Napoleon stands in profile to the left on a flat stone, regarding his troops with morose intensity. They are a grotesque collection. In the first rank (left to right): a man has a blanket wrapped round him, over remnants of breeches, with one bare foot and one dilapidated boot; a man wearing a broad-brimmed hat and woman's petticoat holds an eagle numbered '8796', with a pennant inscribed 'Napoleon'. A dwarfish drummer beats a cask slung from his neck by a rope; he wears a woman's hat, tattered military coat, one jack-boot and one high-heeled woman's shoe of antique pattern. Next, a tall man playing a fife, has a bucket for hat, and a short kilt of straw over bare legs. The men behind hold muskets at different angles, two have spears; all are wretched in the extreme, and absurdly dressed.
Napoleon is short and obese, his hands behind his back, holding a document, his appearance being a curiously prophetic travesty of portraits at St. Helena (e.g. the sketch of March 1817 reproduced, Grand-Carteret, 'Napoléon', p. 21). He wears the petit chapeau and uniform of fact instead of the costume customary in English prints. Behind (right) is his horse, grotesque, emaciated, tall, with skates bound to its hoofs, a ladder leans against its belly, below the saddle; there are two ornate holsters inscribed 'N', each containing three pistols. A Mameluke, Roustan, holds the rein, staring in astonished dismay at the extraordinary soldiers. The staff are foppish despite rags and disaster. One wearing ribbon and star, both hands in an ermine muff, scowls sideways at the troops; his sword is broken. Another holds a double lorgnette. Two others talk together (right); both register despair, one is cynical, the other astonished. All are burlesqued. Below the title: '"Altho their Dress is not gaudy it is warm & that is the principle thing!,, Vide, the Hamburg Correspondenten for 1812—N° 180—14th March—' Russian title above the design: [Text in Russian.] 'Gazette du Dep. des Bouches de l'Elbe, 1812. N. 180.' [Text in Russian.]
27 May 1813.
Hand-coloured etching.
- Production date
- 1813
- Dimensions
-
Height: 255 millimetres
-
Width: 363 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- (Description and comment from M. Dorothy George, 'Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires in the British Museum', IX, 1949)
See No. 11917, &c. Napoleon was at Smolensk from 9 to 11 Nov., and 'he did everything possible to reorganise the different units'. 'The state in which he saw the army on its march through the town convinced him, I think, that our plight was worse than he had been willing to admit to himself.' Caulaincourt, 'Memoirs', 1935, i. 341, 344. One of several prints in which remnants of the French Army wear women's clothes [cf. the street song of Königsberg, 1812: '. . . Kuirassier in Weiberock . . .', H. Nicolson, 'Congress of Vienna', 1815, p. 23] and other makeshift garments, see Nos. 12015, 12053, 12088. Cf. No. 12002.
A Dutch broadside, 'Wapenschouw der Fransche troepen . . .' was published to accompany the English print. Broadley, ii. 416 f.
Reid, No. 238. Cohn, No. 1900. De Vinck, No. 8784. Reproduced, Grand-Carteret, 'Napoléon', No. 251. Listed by Broadley.
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1868
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1868,0808.12718