Vernet, Horace [An Allegory on the Defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte]

H[orace] Vernet.  [An Allegory on the Defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte]

No place, no date.  Probably Paris.  Aquatint.  17 1/4 x 26 3/4 (image) plus full borders.  The print was once torn in half with an expertly repaired vertical line up the middle.  A repaired puncture is at the middle of the right margin.  The overall dramatic situation and graphic power overcome the flaw.

Emile Jean Horace Vernet (1789-1863) was a member of the long lived and numerous Vernet family of artists.  He was born in the Louvre in Paris and specialized in heroic and historical art.  He and his father were both strong Bonapartists, even after the fall of  Napoleon I.

Done at the time of Napoleon's second exile in 1815 or at his death in 1821, the dramatic scene shows the marshalls and soldiers of France mourning as a woman and the children of France desperately try to comfort their Emperor.  The shipwreck in the foreground is the ship of the French state.  A large plank is inscribed with the names of great battles in Napoleon's military career.