Inside the Great Pyramid of Giza, Egypt, Antique Madou Lithograph, 1827

An original antique lithograph from Madou's Vie de Napoléon, published at Brussels in 1827, lettered "PYRAMIDES DE GIZEH" in open capitals above the image. The scene is a dark stone chamber lit by flaming torches in iron baskets on tall poles. At the left two barefoot torchbearers stand beside a great plain stone sarcophagus, with a third bearded attendant holding a torch behind it. Napoleon stands at the center in uniform and bicorne, his sash at his waist, his right hand extended toward the sarcophagus. At the right a group of turbaned and robed elders listens, with a man in a civilian coat holding a book behind them and a French officer in uniform at the far right.

The script caption below the image reads: "Napoléon accompagné des chefs musulmans, visite l'intérieur de la grande pyramide." In English: Napoleon, accompanied by the Muslim leaders, visits the interior of the Great Pyramid. No scene number or printer's line is lettered on this sheet.

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, which the title page names as publisher and owner. The title page describes a text written by a society of men of letters from new documents dictated and corrected by Napoleon himself at Saint Helena, and plates lithographed by Jean-Baptiste Madou (1796 to 1877) after the first painters of the French school.

The French army defeated the Mamluk forces at the battle of the Pyramids on 21 July 1798, fought within sight of the pyramids of Giza, and entered Cairo a few days later. In the months that followed Bonaparte sought the cooperation of the religious leaders and notables of Cairo, and the plate places him among them, as the caption says, inside the largest of the three pyramids of Giza.

The torchlit interior gives the sheet a strong contrast of light and dark that reads well on a pale wall.

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