print;
satirical print
- Museum number
- 1868,0808.6810
- Title
- Object: The ghost of Buonaparte appearing to the directory!!!
- Description
-
Bonaparte (left), standing among clouds, threatens the five Directors with a large jagged sword. He wears a shirt, sash, and spurred boots only, and has a bleeding wound. He declaims angrily: "Regicides, Parricides, Fratricides, & Patricides, this is the Effects of your Insatiable thirst for Conquest, this is Your reward for my Glorious Achievements in Italy, Germany, &c - to die by the Hand of an Assassin, - a D------d Musselman; & all my Brave Legions Destroyed by Water Melons & the Arabs. Go Murderers in Cold Blood; may your Conscious Guilt ever prey upon your Vitals; & may the Name of Nelson ever haunt you Sleeping & waking." The Directors, wearing their plumed hats (except one whose hair rises) and elaborate cloaks (see BMSat 9199), shrink in terror. They are seated at an oblong table on which is a paper: 'Item to send Buonaparte to Egypt to prevent his organizing the Directory.' 1 January 1799
Hand-coloured etching
- Production date
- 1799
- Dimensions
-
Height: 242 millimetres
-
Width: 341 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- (Description and comment from M.Dorothy George, 'Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires in the British Museum', VII, 1942)
A report of Bonaparte's assassination in Cairo was received in London on 14 Dec. 'Lond. Chron.', 15 Dec. 1798, cf. p. 576. At this date the Directors were Barras, Larevellière-Lépeaux, Merlin of Douai, Rewbell, and Treilhard. For Bonaparte, the Directory, and Egypt, see J. H. Rose, 'Napoleon', 1934, pp. 174-82. For the battle of the Nile see BMSat 9250, &c.
Broadley, i. 125 (reproduction, p. 122).
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1868
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1868,0808.6810
