Napoleon's (Painting's) Journey

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Napoleon traveled nearly 2000 miles from France to Moscow with an army of 250,000 men. This painting of Napoleon traveled a bit too.

"1807, Friedland"

Friedland was the site of a French victory over the Russian Army. Some historians consider it the highwater mark of Napoleon's empire. Meissonier was a French artist known for his historical renditions of Napoleon. This was one of his most famous. I have copied a brief discussion of the painting. (See a close-up.)

This work by the French artist, Ernest Meissonier, is the largest and most ambitious painting by an artist renowned for meticulously rendered cabinet pictures, evokes one of Napoleon Bonaparte’s greatest victories. Meissonier made hundreds of preparatory studies for it, including drawings and sculptural models. He conceived the picture as part of a cycle of five key episodes in the life of the Emperor, only one other of which was completed: The Campaign of France—1814, an image of defeat (Musée d'Orsay, Paris). The present work gained notoriety in 1876, when the American department store magnate Alexander T. Stewart purchased it from the artist, sight unseen, for the then astronomical sum of $60,000.

Rudolph was apparently quite good at painting replicas. His work caught the eye of a local reporter from Fall River, Massachusetts who was visiting the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art. He reported on it in the Fall River Globe on October 31, 1908.


Traveling both distance and time, this painting would turn up in the news over 60 years later in 1972. It was presented as a gift to the Ybor City Chamber of Commerce near...Tampa. It comes by way of the New York MMA which had it in its catalog at least through the 1931s. Of course, this makes one wonder if the Met has ever been guilty of displaying replicas rather than originals. Hmmm.


(Since the print is so small, I have copied just the writeup below to make it easier to read.)


It presents a "mystery" that the local paper finds fascinating enough to write a story about it. Masterpiece or copy? How much is it worth? And just who is this R. Bohunek?


I like that the appraiser calls Rudolph's work the same quality even while erroneously dating it to 1856.  

If any reader of this blog is living in Tampa and happens to be in Ybor City, maybe he or she could check to see if the painting is still in the Chamber of Commerce Offices. It's been 50 years since the "Ybor Mystery" and we are due for a semi-centurial update. I'm dying to know.

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