Battle of Bassano, Bonaparte and the Dog, Antique Madou Lithograph, 1827

An original antique lithograph from Madou's Vie de Napoléon, published at Brussels in 1827. The sheet is lettered "BATAILLE DE BASSANO." in open capitals above the image. Bonaparte, on a white horse at the center, has halted with his mounted staff on the field after the action and gestures toward the foreground, where a dog sits with its head raised over the body of a fallen soldier. Other dead lie among a broken wheel, a drum and scattered arms, and at the right a young officer writes in a notebook beside a companion, under tall trees and a stormy sky.

The caption in script below the image reads: "Mes amis, Retirons-nous. dit-il, ce chien nous donne une leçon d'humanité." In English: "My friends, let us withdraw, he said; this dog is giving us a lesson in humanity." No scene number or imprint is lettered on the sheet.

The book is Vie de Napoléon, issued at Brussels in 1827 by the Lithographie royale de Jobard, with a text written by a society of men of letters from the documents Napoleon dictated and corrected on Saint Helena. Its title page credits the lithographed plates, after painters of the French school, to Jean-Baptiste Madou (1796 to 1877), the Belgian artist who drew them on stone. This plate is from the first volume, which covers the years from Brienne to the camp of Boulogne.

The battle of Bassano was fought on 8 September 1796, when Bonaparte overtook Wurmser's army in the valley of the Brenta during Wurmser's second attempt to relieve Mantua and routed it at Bassano. Wurmser escaped with part of his force and reached Mantua, where he was shut up with the garrison. The caption gives the general's remark on the field rather than an account of the fighting.

This is an original antique print, not a modern reproduction. This item is sold unframed.