Battle of the Pyramids, Napoleon in Egypt, Antique Madou Lithograph, 1827

An original antique lithograph from Jean-Baptiste Madou's Vie de Napoléon, published at Brussels in 1827, lettered "BATAILLE DES PYRAMIDES" in open capitals above the image. Bonaparte, mounted on a white horse at the center, points out across the plain, with two palm trees rising behind him and his staff on horseback at the right. In the middle distance a line of infantry fires amid smoke, horsemen ride along it, and the pyramids stand on the horizon. In the foreground a fallen turbaned warrior lies face down beside his weapons, and at the left a group of infantry with a drummer and a tall soldier holding a cane look on.

The caption below the image, in lithographic script, reads: "Dans cette mémorable bataille la perte des Français n'excéda pas 160 hommes, tandis que celle de l'ennemi passa 3,000." In English: In this memorable battle the French losses did not exceed 160 men, while those of the enemy passed 3,000.

Vie de Napoléon was published at Brussels in 1827 by the Lithographie royale de Jobard, the press of Marcellin Jobard, and this plate belongs to its first volume, which follows Napoleon from his schooldays at Brienne to the camp of Boulogne. The title page names Jean-Baptiste Madou (1796 to 1877), a Belgian lithographer and later a painter of genre scenes, as the author of the plates, drawn after compositions by painters of the French school, and describes the text as written from documents dictated and corrected by Napoleon at Saint Helena.

The battle was fought on 21 July 1798 on the west bank of the Nile near Embabeh, opposite Cairo, with the pyramids of Giza visible on the horizon. The French divisions formed in squares and broke the charges of the Mameluke cavalry of Murad Bey, whose entrenched camp at Embabeh was then stormed. The French entered Cairo a few days later. The figures in the caption are the French account of the losses.

It is the most recognizable subject of the Egyptian campaign and sits well beside campaign maps and portraits.

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