Siege of Toulon, Bonaparte Directs the Artillery, Antique Madou Lithograph, 1827

An original antique lithograph of Bonaparte at the siege of Toulon, from Madou's Vie de Napoléon, published at Brussels in 1827. The title "SIÉGE DE TOULON" is lettered in open capitals above the image. On a hilltop a group of officers in plumed hats, bicornes and a fur busby stands in conference. At the right the young Bonaparte, in a plain coat with epaulets, points toward a fort flying a flag on a far hill, where the harbor and shipping show below. A kneeling soldier with his pack spreads a plan on the ground at his feet, and a gun crew works a cannon on the slope at the left, under a sentry on the crest.

The script caption reads: "Bonaparte ayant été chargé de la direction de l'artillerie au siége de Toulon, rectifie les erreurs qui avaient été commises avant lui, et se montre supérieur à ceux même auxquels il était inférieur en grade." In English: Bonaparte, having been given charge of the artillery at the siege of Toulon, corrects the errors that had been made before him, and shows himself superior even to those to whom he was inferior in rank. The sheet is numbered "3." at the lower left.

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 August 1793 the royalists of Toulon handed the port and the French fleet to an Anglo-Spanish force. Bonaparte took over the republican artillery in September, and his plan was to seize the heights commanding the inner harbor. When the forts there fell in December 1793, the allied fleet could no longer hold the anchorage and evacuated the town. On 22 December 1793 he was promoted brigadier general.

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