Napoleon as Mars the Peacemaker
Antonio Canova (model); cast by Francesco Righetti and son (1757-1822) · 1810
Napoleon stands naked like a Greek god, a cloak draped over his shoulder, holding in his left hand the fragment of a long spear and in his right a globe that once carried a winged Victory. A sword hangs from the tree trunk beside him. The pose and the idealised body are those of Mars the Peacemaker, and the head is unmistakably the emperor's. On the base is the inscription F. Righetti and son made this, Rome, eighteen ten. Look at the crisp detail of the small head, reproduced at less than half a metre.
The statuette is a reduction of the colossal figure that Antonio Canova, the most celebrated sculptor in Europe, made of Napoleon, and specifically of the bronze version cast for the city of Milan. Napoleon disliked the marble original, which showed him too naked, and after his fall the Duke of Wellington ended up owning it. According to the museum's old inventory this small bronze was brought to Paris in eighteen eleven and taken by Wellington in eighteen fifteen. It was bequeathed to the museum by Jean-Henri Beck, a former merchant, at the end of eighteen forty-five and entered in January eighteen forty-six.
Did You Know? Napoleon thought Canova's nude statue made him look too athletic, and the Duke of Wellington later owned the marble.
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