Napoleon Bonaparte Sculpture On His Rearing Horse In Gilded Bronze, Late 19th Century

Napoleon Bonaparte sculpture on his rearing horse in gilded bronze Late 19th century Materials: Cast bronze, gilded patina, Marble. France Private Collection Dimensions: Width 27 cm Height 28 cm Depth 12 cm Very good quality of casting and chiseling, very fine details. Condition report: Very good condition, traces of use and age, Small and light chips and tiny little losses on Marble. Beautiful sculpture Napoleon Bonaparte on his rearing horse in gilded bronze crossing the Great Saint Bernard. The general is represented according to tradition, "calm on a fiery horse", although he crossed the pass on a mule. The rearing animal gives dynamism to the composition, which is further reinforced by the grandiloquent gesture of Bonaparte draped in a large coat. The victorious general, with his idealized face, looks at the viewer and shows him the direction to follow, this third political way that he sought to impose between the royalists and the republicans. This sculpture of fine quality was inspired by the famous painting by Jacques-Louis David (1748-1825). This representation commemorates the victorious passage, in May 1800, of the Great St. Bernard Pass by the reserve army under the leadership of the First Consul, the first stage of his triumphant reconquest of Italy. With great audacity, Bonaparte played the surprise by crossing a pass, reputed to be impassable in spring. He revived the exploits of the great captains of the past: Hannibal, crossing the Alps with his elephants in 218 during the Second Punic War, and Charlemagne, in turn, in 773, in his fight against the Lombards. Even before the Napoleonic victories, Austerlitz, Jena, Friedland, Wagram, the work thus inscribes the name of Bonaparte among those of the greatest conquerors in History. Private Collection of an Amateur in Fontainebleau. (*) with an asterisk from an identical provenance of the other items for sale on sites.