General Provera Surrenders after Millesimo, Antique Madou Lithograph, 1827

An original antique lithograph of the surrender of General Provera, from Madou's Vie de Napoléon, published at Brussels in 1827. The title "PROVERA FAIT PRISONNIER" is lettered in open capitals above the image. An elderly officer with white hair, in a pale uniform and riding boots, bows his head and holds out his sword toward Bonaparte, who sits on a prancing gray horse at the right with mounted officers and a hussar behind him. Officers stand behind the surrendering general, and an officer with a bicorne in his hand watches at the left beside an overturned gun wheel. A walled hill town with a tower stands at the left under drifting smoke, with a mountain beyond.

The script caption reads: "Le général Provera, qui, après la bataille de Millesimo, s'était renfermé dans un vieux chateau où il eut la gloire d'arrêter l'armée française pendant un jour entier, se rend prisonnier avec 1500 hommes qu'il commandait." In English: General Provera, who after the battle of Millesimo had shut himself up in an old castle, where he had the glory of holding up the French army for a whole day, surrenders as a prisoner with the 1500 men he commanded. There is no scene number or imprint on this sheet.

The book appeared at Brussels in 1827 from the Lithographie royale de Jobard, Marcellin Jobard's press. According to its title page, the text was written by a society of men of letters from new documents dictated and corrected at Saint Helena by Napoleon himself, and the plates were lithographed by the Belgian artist Jean-Baptiste Madou (1796 to 1877) after painters of the French school. This is a plate from the first volume.

In the fighting around Millesimo on 13 April 1796, the Austrian general Giovanni di Provera threw himself with his troops into the ruined castle of Cosseria and beat off the French assaults. Out of water and food, he surrendered on 14 April 1796. The French victories of these days separated the Austrian army from its Piedmontese ally.

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