Testament de Buonaparte

[Paris], 1815. Original hand-colored engraving showing Napoleon in his bedclothes writing his will at table in a cabin of the ship Northumberland on the way to St. Helena. Printed area measures approximately 9.25" x 10.5"; matted and framed to 17" x 21.5." Very good condition. "Considered with other forms of military memorabilia, satiric prints serve as a reminder that printed images were effectively used as a weapon of sorts. As such, satires...that depict Napoleon as a diminutive brat combat Napoleon's self-constructed imperial image as a powerful god-like ruler. Satires such as these participate in a broad conversation that spans genres to suggest that the official French images of Napoleon are no more authentic or permanent than the satiric image. To this day Napoleon's imperial image is popularly conflated with his satirical representation — namely his short stature, which is largely a satiric invention" (Hope Saska, Brown University Library Center for Digital Scholarship). In this print, Napoleon wears a night cap and gown, his uniform piled on the floor nearby, as he considers the sheet of paper in front of him with a dejected expression. "His austere cabin is ornamented only with a swag of drapery on the back wall behind his hanging plank bed. In the right background, a door opens on to a deck lined with cannons and soldiers, two of which sit in hanging bunk beds. The rhyming text under the image enumerates his empty bequests. For example, he begins: 'I cannot bequeath my soul, because I don't know if I have one.' And he concludes: 'Finally, I leave the honor my eulogy to Mr. E***, and I leave my skeleton entirely to the school of medicine'" (Brown Library catalog record). According to the British Museum, this print was listed in the Bibliographie de la France for 2 September 1815 by Moithey, a French caricaturist and author of an early history of the French Revolution titled Le Défenseur de la Liberté, ou Histoire de la Révolution de Mil Sept Cent Quatre-Vingt-Neuf (1790).