Bonaparte Received by the Institut de France, Antique Madou Lithograph, 1827

An original antique lithograph from Jean-Baptiste Madou's Vie de Napoléon, published at Brussels in 1827, lettered "RECEPTION PAR L'INSTITUT" in open capitals above the image. The scene is a long vaulted hall lined with columns, with a balustraded gallery and caryatid figures at the far end and statues on pedestals along the walls. Members in dark civilian coats and knee breeches fill the benches on both sides. In the center of the floor Bonaparte, in uniform with a sash and holding his hat, turns with an open hand toward a group of members at the left, while an older man in a long coat stands close beside him at the right and a few seated figures preside at a table behind.

The caption below the image, in lithographic script, reads: "Bonaparte reçu membre de l'Institut, assistait assiduement à ses séances." In English: Bonaparte, received as a member of the Institut, attended its sessions assiduously.

The plate comes from the first volume of Vie de Napoléon, published at Brussels in 1827 by the Lithographie royale de Jobard, the press of Marcellin Jobard. Its title page describes a text written by a society of men of letters from the new documents dictated and corrected at Saint Helena by Napoleon himself, illustrated with lithographed plates by Jean-Baptiste Madou (1796 to 1877) after painters of the French school. Madou, a Belgian, later became known as a painter of genre scenes.

Bonaparte was elected to the first class of the Institut national, in the section of mechanics, on 25 December 1797, a few weeks after his return to Paris from Italy, taking the seat left vacant by Lazare Carnot. The Institut then held its sessions in the Louvre. He valued the title, signing himself member of the Institut in his proclamations to the Army of the Orient, and in the following year he took a body of scientists and scholars with him to Egypt.

A quiet interior subject in a largely military series, it suits a study or a library.

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