Convention of Alessandria After Marengo, Antique Madou Lithograph, 1827

An original antique lithograph from Madou's Vie de Napoléon, published at Brussels in 1827, lettered "CONV.ON D'ALEXANDRIE" in open capitals above the image. On a field camp, General Berthier stands at the left in a plumed bicorne and hands a document to the First Consul, who sits on a stool beside a drum draped with cloth and spread with a map, with a second drum behind him. A sheaf of standards rises behind them, and at the right officers wait in front of a striped tent flying a flag. Grenadiers with shouldered muskets and a horseman fill the distance at the left, and a fire smolders among fallen branches in the foreground.

The caption below the image reads: "Le g.l Berthier présente au premier Consul la convention par laquelle le feld-maréchal Mélas lui abandonne le Piémont, la Lombardie, la Ligourie, les légations et toutes les places fortes de ces provinces." In English: General Berthier presents to the First Consul the convention by which Field Marshal Melas gives up to him Piedmont, Lombardy, Liguria, the Legations and all the fortresses of those provinces.

Vie de Napoléon was 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 new documents dictated and corrected by Napoleon at Saint Helena, with plates lithographed by the Belgian artist Jean-Baptiste Madou (1796 to 1877) after the first painters of the French school. This plate comes from the first volume, which runs from Brienne to the camp of Boulogne.

The title refers to Alessandria in Piedmont, not Alexandria in Egypt. After the Austrian defeat at Marengo on 14 June 1800, Berthier, as commander of the Army of Reserve, signed a convention with the Austrian commander Michael von Melas at Alessandria on 15 June 1800. Under its terms the Austrian army withdrew east of the Mincio and handed over the fortresses of Piedmont, Lombardy and Liguria, leaving northern Italy to the French without a further battle.

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