Battle of Montebello, General Lannes, Antique Madou Lithograph, 1827

An original antique lithograph from Jean-Baptiste Madou's Vie de Napoléon, printed at Brussels in 1827. The sheet is lettered "BATAILLE DE MONTEBELLO" in open capitals above the image. At the center a general in a bicorne on a white horse points ahead, flanked at the left by an officer in a bicorne and at the right by a hussar in a plumed shako seen from behind, both on dark horses, with more horsemen behind at the left. A dead horse lies in the left foreground and a fallen soldier at the center, while at the right wounded men rest on the ground beside a gun carriage wheel and others watch, arms folded. Beyond them the battle runs on across the plain in clouds of smoke toward a bridge and a hill town.

The caption below the image reads: "L'armée autrichienne, après s'être battue avec un grand acharnement, laissa sur le champ de bataille 3,000 morts et 6,000 prisonniers. Le g.l Lannes se couvrit de gloire. Les français firent des prodiges d'intrépidité" In English: "The Austrian army, after fighting with great fury, left 3,000 dead and 6,000 prisoners on the field. General Lannes covered himself with glory. The French performed prodigies of intrepidity."

Vie de Napoléon was published at Brussels in 1827 by the Lithographie royale de Jobard, éditeur propriétaire. Its title page describes a text written by a society of men of letters from new documents dictated and corrected by Napoleon himself on Saint Helena, with plates lithographed by Jean-Baptiste Madou (1796 to 1877) after the first painters of the French school. This plate belongs to the first volume.

The battle of Montebello was fought on 9 June 1800 near Casteggio, in the Oltrepò south of the Po, between the French advance guard under General Jean Lannes and an Austrian corps under General Ott. After a long and hard fight the Austrians fell back westward, and five days later the main armies met at Marengo. In 1808 Lannes was made Duke of Montebello, taking his title from this battle.

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