Conferences of Udine Broken Off, Then War, Antique Madou Lithograph, 1827

An original antique lithograph from Jean-Baptiste Madou's Vie de Napoléon, published at Brussels in 1827, lettered "CONFÉRENCES D'UDINE INTERROMPUES" in open capitals above the image. At night, Bonaparte steps out onto the curved landing of a building beneath a statue in a niche, his hand on his sword, while a man in a white coat reaches for his arm and others in court dress follow behind. A sentry stands under a lit lantern at the left, an officer waits at the top of the steps, and at the right a carriage stands with its lamp lit and a man holding a cloak beside it, under a moon breaking through cloud.

The caption below the image, in lithographic script, reads: "Refuser des conditions raisonnables, dit Bonaparte, c'est vouloir la guerre; eh bien la guerre!" In English: To refuse reasonable terms, said Bonaparte, is to want war; very well, war!

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.

After the preliminaries of Leoben, the final peace with Austria was negotiated through the summer and autumn of 1797 at Udine and at the nearby villa of Passariano, with the Austrian plenipotentiary Count Ludwig von Cobenzl. The talks ended in the treaty of Campo Formio, signed on 17 October 1797.

The night lighting from the lanterns and the moon makes this a striking plate to hang in a study or a library.

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