How Canova and Wellington honoured Napoleon: when the Duke of Wellington was given Canova's monumental statue of Napoleon as Mars in 1816, he placed it in the stairwell of Apsley House in London. This position is often interpreted as a calculated insult to the duke's old foe, but, as Julius Bryant argues, it was in fact a carefully thought-out tribute.
Few classic works of art in London make such an immediate and lasting impression as does Canova's statue Napoleon as Mars the Peacemaker (1802-1806) at Apsley House, Piccadilly (Fig. 1). Napoleon's familiar remark made after his retreat from Moscow in 1812 could almost equally apply to the sculpture he commissioned: 'Du sublime au ridicule il n'ya qu'un pas'. (1) Bought by the British government from Louis XVIII for 66,000 francs in 1816, the year after Waterloo, it was presented by the Prince Regent to the Duke of Wellington and has stood in the stairwell of his townhouse since 1817. The statue has prompted much research and articles about the commission but none has explored its fate after it was rejected by Napoleon in 1811, particularly the setting given to it by Wellington. (2)[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]
The location of the sculpture prompted published criticism from France and Italy in Wellington's lifetime and it is still seen today as evidence that the victor of Waterloo sought to humble his adversary by giving a war trophy an unworthy domestic setting. (3) The most recent art-historical discussion of the sculpture describes it as Wellington's virtual captive, 'still claustrophobically "imprisoned" by the stair balusters near the front entrance of the Iron Duke's London mansion'. (4)
Canova's sculpture needs to be appreciated afresh, as one of his few works still in its historic setting, a position conceived to invite a more subtle range of responses. Indeed, as an introduction to Wellington's collection, rising through his remodelled suite of reception rooms, Canova's Napoleon provides a key to a new appreciation of what the Duke of Wellington was trying to say to his guests through his furnishing of interiors and display of works of art at Apsley House.
Summoned to Paris, Canova began the sculpture in 1802 by modelling Napoleon's likeness; he finished the statue in Rome in 1806. To Canova, the ideal nude physique, chosen in allusion to statues of Augustus, raised the artistic standing of the commission so that it might outlive its role as propaganda. From the outset it was conceived as an indoor work of art for a museum entrance setting, rather than as a freestanding monument in a piazza. Francois Cacault, the ambassador in Rome, wrote in 1803 that 'the statue must become the most perfect work of this century. It is not a figure to be placed on a public square: it must be placed in the museum in the midst of the ancient masterpieces we owe to the first consul'. (5) Vivant Denon, director of the Musee Napoleon, wrote from Rome in 1806 to the emperor that it belongs indoors 'in the museum among the emperors and in the niche where the Laocoon is, in such a manner that it would be the first object that one sees on entering'. (6) However, when Napoleon finally came to see it in Paris, in April 1811, he rejected it as 'trop athletique' and forbade public access. (7) By now he wished to be seen less as a semi-divine hero and more as the hard-working statesman, author of the Code Napoleon. This is how he is shown in Lefevre's portrait of him of 1809 (Musee Carnavelet, Paris), a version of which Wellington purchased for Apsley House in 1820 (Fig. 2).
[FIGURE 2 OMITTED]
In his description of his visit to Apsley House, published in 1836, the German art historian Johann Passavant recalled 'When I last saw this statue, it was under very different auspices, being placed in the Louvre at Paris, among the statues of the Roman and Grecian heroes, whom the conqueror had snatched from their native climes to embellish his capital.' (8) The sale of the sculpture provided funds which the Louvre used to reinstall the Salle des Antiques. (9) By 1814 the statue had been concealed behind a canvas screen in a corner of the Salle des Hommes Illustres. This is where Wellington probably first encountered it himself, when, as commander-in-chief of the allied armies of occupation in France (appointed 22 October 1815), he supported Canova's endeavours to return looted works of art to the museums and palaces of Europe.
Canova expressed his gratitude to the duke in 1817 when he presented him with an ideal head of a dancer (Fig. 3).Wellington had shown his interest in collecting sculpture on 17 June 1816, when he purchased at least nine antique marbles (seven busts, a mask and a seated Cupid, several of which were recorded in the Villa Mattei, Rome, in 1778) at the sale of the French ambassador to the Holy See, Cardinal Joseph Fesch, another of Canova's patrons. (10) The year before, Wellington had failed to acquire at Malmaison a group of sculptures by Canova that went to the Emperor Alexander I of Russia. These included a sculpture commissioned by Josephine Beauharnais, Dancer with her Hands on her Hips (c. 1802, Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg), whose head Canova repeated as his gift to Wellington. (11)
[FIGURE 3 OMITTED]
At this time Canova was the world's greatest living artist and the fate of the Napoleon must have caused concern as the Louvre was steadily denuded of statues. The artist himself offered to buy it back, (12) but Canova's works were in great demand among English patrons. (13) This was no white elephant to be acquired for political amusement.
In June 1817 a journal informed its readers of the thirteen-ton statue's delivery to Apsley House following its arrival in London the year before:
It was brought by water, and landed at the Duke of Richmond's Gardens, in Privy Gardens, and was placed in an out-house there, the key of which has been in the possession of Earl Bathurst, who has occasionally accommodated his friends with a sight of the statue in the case. On Monday evening [1st June 1817] it was removed in a wagon ... to Apsley House, now in the possession of the Duke of Wellington, where a number of workmen were employed on Monday evening, and during the greater part of yesterday, in making a stage from the court-yard level with the hall, to convey it into the hall, where it is to be stationed. (14)
Henry, third Earl Bathurst, may have been entrusted with the key to the cased statue as he had been secretary of state for war from 1812 and was minister responsible for the care and confinement of Napoleon on St Helena.
An invoice from Wellington's architect, Benjamin Dean Wyatt, dated 28 January 1818, covers 'repairs done at Apsley House last Summer, as well as for erecting the Pier to support the Statue of Bounaparte [sic] ... the Estimate ... was 117 [pounds sterling] including the Pedestal, which was not executed'. Wyatt also enclosed 'Bills ... for work done by order of Mr Flaxman's Foreman' and added 'P.S. I beg Your Grace to observe that the accompanying Bill for labor in unpacking and placing Marbles &c is entirely unconnected with the account which Your Grace paid in the summer for clearing and conveying the same Articles at the Custom house & from thence to Apsley House'. (15) The invoice also reveals the involvement in the installation of the sculptor John Flaxman, who had known Canova when in Rome (1787-94); it also implies the presence of more than one sculpture. (16)
An additional document, apparently enclosed with the invoice, is dated 18 July 1817 and signed by William Richard Hamilton, the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs under Castlereagh who facilitated Canova's art restitution campaign in Paris. The note provides 'Canovas' [sic] Directions for finding the perpendicular of the Statue'. It directs the workmen to 'Suspend a lead line from the point of the right breast--it should fall right in the Center of a small [cross?] marked on the surface of the base'. Canova had sent these instructions to Hamilton on 23 September 1816 in response to a letter of 9 September 1816 in which his friend reported that his statue had been purchased for '66 mila franchi ... e liberate ]erasure] sain et saul in Londra'. Intriguingly, Hamilton also told Canova that the sculpture was destined for the planned 'palazzo di nostro Scipione'. (17)
One reason for the decision not to create a pedestal may have been that in 1817 the stairwell was simply an interim location, pending the building of Waterloo Palace on the Stratfield Saye estate in Hampshire. Benjamin Dean Wyatt's ambitious designs for the nineteenth century's reply to Blenheim Palace, as the grateful nation's gift to the modern Marlborough, do not specify a setting for Canova's Napoleon. But the designs show two nude male statues on pedestals in the entrance hall below vast battle paintings and two more in the great domed central hall. (18) Wellington had no such statues. The scheme would have been rivalled by the proposed statue of Napoleon by Chantrey, conceived by his admirers to stand at the foot of the grand stairs at Holkham Hall, Norfolk, where William Kent had planned to set a statue of Jupiter. Chantrey's sculpture, by contrast, would have carried a Latin inscription comparing Napoleon's treatment unfavourably with that of Themistodes by Admetus. Napoleon had compared himself to the Greek hero when he wrote to the Prince Regent seeking his protection to retire to England. (19)
Wellington rejected Wyatt's vision for a Waterloo Palace and directed his architect instead to enlarge and remodel Apsley House. The great Waterloo Gallery there must have been conceived not only to display paintings from the Spanish royal collection and to provide a fitting setting for the annual Waterloo Banquet, but also as an evocation of the ancien regime, where Wellington, as Prince of Waterloo, could receive fellow royalty from overseas. The extension also had implications for the floor below, which greatly enhanced the setting of Canova's marble. Wyatt's changes between 1828 and 1830 included the creation of a new entrance hall alongside Robert Adam's original, so releasing the present Inner Hall to serve as a sculpture gallery.
With the remodelling, the stairwell became the third and finest room as the finale of the ground-floor reception suite. The original staircase had been built with the house by Robert Adam between 1771 and 1778; it rose behind a twin-columned screen and ended on the landing behind another screen (Fig. 5). Wyatt's remodelling, completed by February 1829, removed the screens, extended the staircase to the third storey and introduced an ornate ceiling and gilt-iron balustrade in the French revival style. (20) The stairwell was lit by a yellow glazed skylight in the form of a low dome (replaced in 1860). According to the Morning Chronicle, reviewing the house on its public opening on 7 January 1853, 'the effect of the work is increased by the demi-jour in which it is seen, a light affected by Canova'.
[FIGURE 5 OMITTED]
When Wellington and Wyatt fell out over the cost of the Waterloo Gallery, the duke's confidante, Mrs Arbuthnot, stepped in as intermediary and, indeed, later claimed credit for several design details. It seems likely that she also had a hand in the more sympathetic setting of Canova's sculpture. She would have felt that she knew how to present a Canova, for on 13 April 1822 she noted in her journal her visit that day to Woburn Abbey:
In the Garden is a most beautiful Statue Gallery; at each end is a recess, in one the bust of Mr. Fox and several of his intimate friends, and in the other is a group of figures representing the three Graces by Canova, it is the most beautiful thing I ever saw & particularly well placed as the recess is a warm yellow colour, the light comes from the top & it gives a glow to the figures quite resembling life. (21)
The Temple of the Graces had been completed in 1818 by Jeffry Wyatt, cousin of Wellington's architect, and was published by his patron, the Duke of Bedford, in a large folio volume devoted to the sculpture gallery that was sent to friends and artists in 1822. Canova had visited Woburn in 1815 to advise on the setting for his sculpture, which was completed in 1817 and installed in 1819. An early account of the intended effect at Apsley House, which was published in 1836, is given by Johann Passavant:
the grand stair-case brought me at once into the realms of English splendour. Through the cupola of painted glass above, a subdued radiance is shed over the rich groups of antique and modern sculpture, which attract attention on all sides. Among these, the most striking object, both picturesquely and historically speaking, is Canova's colossal statue of Napoleon, represented as conqueror of the world, with Victory in the one hand, and the Sceptre of power in the other; of the finest Carrara marble. (22)
Passavant's description of the statue as among 'rich groups of antique and modern sculpture' must refer to Wellington's purchases from Cardinal Fesch's sale and to the busts he commissioned of himself and friends. These would have included the busts of himself by Joseph Nollekens commissioned by the duke in 1813, by Francis Chantrey (1823) and by Benedetto Pistrucci (1835), together with Nollekens's busts of William Pitt the Younger (1808) and Spencer Perceval (1813), which Wellington purchased from the artist in 1816. Nollekens's bust of George Canning (1810) may have been purchased from the sculptor at the same time. He also purchased before 1819 a bust of George III by Turnerelli. As well as complementing Canova's statue with busts of modern statesmen (as at Woburn), Wellington owned two marble groups by Christopher Prosperi (Venus and Cupid; Bacchus and Ariadne, both c. 1812) and two bronze groups by Jean-Francois Theodore Gechter (A Combat; Charles Martel, both 1837). (23) Canova's Napoleon was not presented in incongruous isolation but rather in its own room, like an urban temple, as the rotunda of a sculpture gallery. Rather than just a thoroughfare, the encircling staircase could have served as the ideal vantage point from which to enjoy the surface of the marble by artificial light, as was customary among Canova's admirers.
When Gustav Waagen, director of the Royal Gallery in Berlin, published his account of his visit to Apsley House in 1838 he described two busts of Wellington in the 'anteroom' to the stairwell, which he called 'the hall', but felt 'there is not even space enough properly to view the statue'. (24) Waagen was more delighted to find in the 'anteroom' the reduced bronze copy of the statue of General Bliicher by C.D. Rauch. Wellington had attended the inauguration of the original statue at Breslau in 1826.
According to the Athenaeum, writing in 1853 (of 'Canova's greatest work'), the room also presented eight busts (only eight pedestals are recorded in the earliest known inventory, of 1854) and 'a very large and impressive collection of marble busts on the Waiting-Room table, grouped together without much order, but striking and tasteful notwithstanding'. (25) The effect would have been similar to the room as recorded in a photograph taken around 1900 (Fig. 4), by when several busts had returned from Stratfield Saye. Canova's statue was thus set not only among antique and modern sculpture, under a yellow light as favoured by the artist, as at Woburn, but was accompanied by likenesses of Napoleon's foes.
[FIGURE 4 OMITTED]
The established view that the setting was intended to shame Napoleon can be traced through French and Italian criticisms published in the nineteenth century. The French sculptor David d'Angers noted in his memoirs, published in 1878, 'I recall having seen Canova's marble at the foot of the Englishman's stairs, in 1816, with servants jackets on the shoulder'. (26) D'Angers must have been mistaken, for the statue was delivered in June 1817, but he may have visited during the installation, when it could have been covered with servants' coats for its protection. However, in his own memoirs, Napoleon's secretary, Baron Claude-Francois de Meneval, acknowledges the sculptor as his source but embellishes the account by describing the statue more generally 'used as a coat stand'. (27)
Francois-Rene, vicomte de Chateaubriand, French ambassador in London from 1822, criticised Wellington's choice of setting for the statue. He noted how 'Napoleon's colossal statue by Canova adorned the Duke of Wellington's staircase. Might not another sanctuary in the temple have been appropriate to a vain caretaker than to an honourable warrior. General, you did not conquer Napoleon at Waterloo. All you did was wrench asunder the last link in an already broken chain of destiny.' Immediately before this criticism, however, to put it back in its ambiguous context, Chateaubriand gave examples of British Napoleonophilia: 'They moved from denigration of Nic to a foolish enthusiasm. Memoirs of Bonaparte proliferated; his bust was on every chimney-piece; engravings of him illuminated the windows of every print shop.' (28)
Chateaubriand first cites Canova's statue in London as an example of British admiration of Napoleon, not scorn. He could also have cited the bronze bust after the same sculpture that Lady Holland raised in 1818 in her garden at Holland House, Kensington, on a nine-foot high column with an inscription reminding admirers that on a 'distant, sea-girt island, harsh men the hero keep'. (29) Erected only months after the statue's installation at Apsley House, Lady Holland's monument was presumably intended as a reply.
Another published comment on the setting that Wellington himself could have known was a corrective letter sent to The Times in 1847 after the Florentine writer F.D. Guerrazzi described it standing 'in the vaults or cellars (cantine) of apsley-house' as 'an indelible disgrace to England'. (30)
Such criticism of the setting from abroad was sufficiently well known for it to be discussed in the first standard biography of Wellington. In the Reverend G.R. Gleig's Life of Arthur, first Duke of Wellington, partly from the French of M. Brialmont (London, 1862) the final paragraph opens the case for the defence:
The French accuse him of want of tact and modesty, in placing the statue of Napoleon at the bottom of the stairs in Apsley House. The fact is undisputed; but the motive assigned for it is entirely opposed to the sentiments and ordinary character of the Duke that we cannot possibly admit it. The victor of Waterloo possessed too much good sense as well as tact, to think of overshadowing by such means the man whom one of his countrymen has pronounced to be 'the greatest genius of ancient or modern times'. His voluminous correspondence does not contain a single letter which expresses even a doubt of the military superiority of the Emperor'.
Having testified to Wellington's admiration of Napoleon, Gleig ends on a confused note: 'we must continue to believe that the position of the Emperor's statue, an unfortunate one no doubt, has no significance whatever'. (31) Two years later the whole discussion was omitted from the next edition.
If Gleig stopped short of seeing the statue in its setting as a tribute to Napoleon, Lady Salisbury took the opposite point of view on her visit in 1838. After the dinner held in honour of Wellington's former adversary Marshal Soult on 28 July she noted how he must have felt humbled by the setting for: 'Everything that surrounded us was a trophy ... everything was the gift of a grateful nation in recompense of the triumph obtained by the victor over ... the malignant foe to England'. (32) Her observation may have been true from her place at the dinner table, but the collections at Apsley House were, and remain, more diverse in their origins and intended effect. Apsley House was indeed rich in Wellington's assembly of Napoleonica but the aim was not, as Lady Salisbury felt, simply to humble the memory of Napoleon and the spirits of French visitors. (33)
Canova's sculpture introduced visitors to an associative setting of art that encouraged Wellington's guests to reflect on the relative merits not only of Napoleon and Wellington but also of statesmen, commanders (including Soult and Blucher), princes, kings and emperors, all of whom Wellington had known. There are at Apsley House four painted portraits of Napoleon and five oil paintings of Empress Josephine, Pauline Borghese and Joseph Bonaparte. Wellington added three modern history paintings that show Napoleon in a positive light. In 1841 he purchased Edward Matthew Ward's Napoleon in the Prison of Nice in 1794 (Fig. 6), in 1843 Passage of the Danube by Napoleon before the Battle of Wagram, painted by J.F.J. Swebach, and, in the same year, after seeing it at the Royal Academy exhibition, he purchased The Battle of Waterloo (as seen from the French side, with Napoleon in the foreground) painted by Sir William Allan. (34) Wellington also displayed Napoleonic memorabilia with the trophies awarded to him. But there are other themes within the collection.
[FIGURE 6 OMITTED]
After leaving the stairwell and statue, guests entered the principal drawing room, where, above the chimney piece, Wellington chose to hang a portrait of John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough. (35) This was the other comparison that had dogged him for years. In his biography Gleig noted that comparisons with Marlborough usually favoured the victor of Blenheim. Doubtless informed by Wellington himself, Gleig feels this is 'unjust', as his subject 'was driven to create his own resources', whereas Marlborough 'had at his command the whole military resources of Great Britain', with no colonies to protect. (36)
In the same room Wellington hung Wilkie's Chelsea Pensioners reading the Waterloo Despatch (1822). Commissioned by Wellington in 1816, it may be seen as his tribute to all the regiments that served under him, in response to widespread disappointment at the lack of credit he gave the common soldier when writing the Waterloo Despatch the year before. Wellington commissioned from Thomas Lawrence a series of full-length portraits of his field commanders, only three of which were completed before the painter died. Richard Ford, writing in the Quarterly Review in 1853, dubbed two rooms of likenesses of soldiers and politicians 'the Piccadilly Valhalla'. (37) When Wellington hung the 'State Dining Room' with full-length portraits of the crowned heads of Europe he created a formal setting that must have seemed like a nostalgic tribute to the old order. (38)
When asked to name the greatest general of the age Wellington replied 'In this age, in past ages, in any age, Napoleon'. (39) The care he took to display Canova's statue, and the collection he formed to accompany it, surely confirms that he expected it to command respect and reflection, rather than be seen simply as a war trophy, as a humbled captive caged by banisters.
I am most grateful to Christopher Woodward for inviting me to write this article following our discussion in response to his paper on Anglo-Napoleonophilia given to the Wallace Collection Study Group in 2004, and for making many helpful comments on the typescript.
(1) From the sublime to the ridiculous it is but one step'. Napoleon to De Pradt, Polish ambassador, in D.G De Pradt, Histoire de l'Ambassade clans le grande duche de Varsovie en 1812, Pans, 1815, p. 218.
(2) Hugh Honour, 'Canova's Napoleon', APOLLO, vol. XCVIII, no. 139 (September 1973), pp. 180-84. where he cites as the main sources F. Boyer. Le Monde des arts en Italie et la France de la Revolution et de l'Empire, Turin, 1969, pp. 131-41, and G. Hubert, La sculpture dans l'Italie napoleonienne, Paris, 1964. pp. 141-47.
(3) A. Roberts, Wellington and Napoleon, London, 2002, p. 251, describes Wellington's choice of setting for the sculpture as a 'way of emphasising and commemorating his victory over someone who had sneeringly referred to him as a 'sepoy general'. The sculpture (and, indeed, Apsley House) is not cited in the most recent study, S. Semmel, Napoleon and the British, New Haven and London, 2004.
(4) C.M.S. Johns, Antonio Canova and the Politics of Patronage In Revolutionary and Napoleonic Europe, Berkeley, 1998, p. 106. For Canova's attitude to the commission, see pp. 88-109. Johns considers it to be 'the artist's most singular failure' (p 89).
(5) Quoted in ibid., p. 99.
(6) Quoted in Boyer, op. cit., p. 136. The location, showing the Laocoon at the entrance to the Musee Napoleon, is recorded in views painted by Hubert Robert, c. 1802 1805, as illustrated in M.-C. Sahut, Le Louvre d'Hubert Robert, Pans, 1979, pp. 49-50.
(7) Vivant Denon to Canova, 15 April 1811, quoted in Boyer, op. cit., pp. 138-39,
(8) J.D. Passavant, Tour of a German Artist England, London, 1836, vol. 1, p. 167. Pope Plus v, may have been exaggerating when he told Wellington's friend lady Shelley that 'the ladies of Paris were so angry at its nudity that it had to be concealed' (quoted by Roberts, op. cit., p. 247).
(9) Boyer, op. cit. p. 141.
(10) Wellington's marked up copy of the sale catalogue survives in the collection of the present Duke of Wellington. A photocopy is in the museum archive at Apsley House.
(11) K. Eustace (ed.), Canova Ideal Heads, exh. cat., Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, 1997, no. 2 and p. 14 citing E. Robertson (ed.), Letters and Papers of Andrew Robertson, A.M., London, 1897, pp. 270-71.
(12) For the letter from Canova's half brother to Quatremere de Quincy dated 13 November 1815 see Johns, op. cit., pp. 104-105 and p. 215, n. 45, and Boyer, op. cit., p. 140.
(13) F.J.B. Watson, 'Canova and the English', Architectural Review, vol. CXXII, 1957, pp. 403-406; Hugh Honour, 'A. Canova and the Anglo-Romans', Connoisseur, vol. CXLIII, 1959, pp. 241-45; and vol. CXLIV, 1959, pp. 225 31.31 Clifford, 'Canova in Context', in Antonio Canova: Three Graces. A celebratory exhibition, exh. cat., National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh, 1995 pp. 9-18.
(14) Quoted in C.H. Gibbs Smith and H.V.T. Percival, A Guide to the Wellington Museum, London, 1952, p. 27. I am grateful to Victor Percival for trying to trace the source of this quote, which was found by Gerald Wellesley, 7th Duke of Wellington. For the weight see Boyer, op. cit., p. 137.
(15) Currently unlocated; typed transcript from 1996 in museum archive, Apsley House. This is corroborated by a group of letters and accounts relating to the delivery and installation, dated 22 May, 5 June, 12 June, 14 June and 30 June 1817, in the Duke of Wellington's papers at Stratfield Saye (Bundle E), kindly drawn to my attention by Alicia Robinson, formerly Director of Apsley House. Transporting the 'Bonaparte figure' required six men, a wagon drawn by eight horses 'and use of a long cloth to cover it' according to Flaxman's invoice, dated 5 June 1817. The Morning Chronicle noted on 5 September 1817, p. 3: 'It has just been removed to Apsley House'. An invoice dated 11 May 1818 for the pier to support the statue is in the National Art Library, Victoria & Albert Museum, London, MSL/1996/2/2/7.
(16) Alternatively, the reference to 'Marbles &C' might refer to the left arm (the sculpture came in two sections) together with the figure of Victory and the lance.
(17) Quoted in Eustace, op. cit., no. 5, from manuscripts in Biblioteca and Museo Civico, Bassano and in a private collection. See also Honour, op. cit. in n. 2 above, p. 26, n. 41. This contradicts Eustace, op. cit., p. 14: 'The English ... paid the French government 35,000 [pounds sterling] for Canova's Napoleon as Mars'.
(18) Sotheby's, 11 December 1980, lots 126, 127, 150. The designs suggest casts after antique statues.
(19) W.O. Hassall and N.B. Penny, 'Political sculpture at Holkham', Connoisseur, vol. cxcv, 1977, pp. 207-11; T. Thistlethwayte, Memoirs and correspondence of Dr Henry Bathurst, London, 1853, p. 335, refers in 1828 to a proposed statue of 'Napoleon on the Rock of St Helena', by Chantrey for Holkham to fill 'a vacant space for a statue in the Egyptian Hall'. However, Hassall and Penny, op. cit. (p. 207), observe: 'the only place for it would have been at the foot of the grand stairs'.
(20) Wyatt created a similar staircase, on a much larger scale, nearby at York House (now known as Lancaster House) between 1828 and 1830: J. Yorke, Lancaster House, London, 2001, pp. 33, 64, 68.
(21) F. Bamford and the Duke of Wellington (ed.), The Journal of Mrs Arbuthnot 1820-1832, London, 1950. vol. I, p. 154.
(22) Passavant, op, cit. p. 167.
(23) E. Wellington, A descriptive and historical catalogue of the collection of Pictures and sculpture at Apsley House, London, 1901, vol. II, pp. 419-49, 451, 453, where Wellington's other sculptures are also listed. including the three (unattributed) bronze busts of Louis it, Louis XIV and Marshal Turenne, all purchased in Paris in 1822. See also A. Michaelis, Ancient Marbles in Great Britain, Cambridge, 1882, pp. 429-31
(24) G.F. Waagen, Works of Art and Artists in England, London, 1838, vol. II, p. 293.
(25)Anonymous (probably R. Ford), 'Apsley House', The Athenaeum, no. 1315, 1853, p. 491.
(26) H. Jouin, David d'Angers, Paris, 1878, vol. II, p, 156: 'Je me souviens avoir vu le marbre de Canova au bas de l'escalier de l'Anglais, en 1816, avec des vestes de domestiques sur l'epaule'.
(27) C.F. de Meneval, Memoirs pour servir a l'histoire de Napoleon ler, Pads, vol. I, p. 204: 'et servant de porte manteau!'. The description is further embroidered by Roberts, op. cit., p. 247, who cites Meneval as his source in claiming that the statue was 'used by the duke's visitors 'to hang coats and hats on', (a highly unlikely fate for which no other potential evidence is known).
(28) Quoted in G. Martineau, Napoleon's Last Journey, London, 1976, p. 55.
(29) Quoted in Roberts, op. cit., p. 274.
(30) C.C.E., 'Canova's Statue of Napoleon', The Times, 22 November 1847, p, 3.
(31) Gleig, op. cit., pp. 716-17.
(32) MSS diary among the papers of the 2nd Marchioness of Salisbury, Hatfield House, cited by Roberts, op, cit., p. 319.
(33) Roberts follows Lady Salisbury's response in describing Apsley House as 'that treasure house of Napoleonic trophies' (p. 319). He notes that 'short of having the emperor himself in an iron cage in the hall at Stratleld Saye, Wellington could hardly have had more trophies of the man he had defeated' (p. 251) and sees Canova's statue as 'the ultimate trophy' (opp. p. 186).
(34) The Ward, Swebach and Allan all hang today at Apsley House.
(35) E. Wellington, Pictures and Sculptures at Apsley House, London, London, 1901, pp. 4-5, no. 34. Lord Douro kindly informed me that this portrait was sold at Sotheby's London, c. 1978.
(36) Gleig, op. cit., pp. 618 19. See also E. Longford, Wellington, London, 1992, p. 507.
(37) R. Ford, 'Apsley House, Piccadilly', Quarterly Review, vol. XCII, March 1853, pp, 446-70. See also CM. Kauffmann, Catalogue of Paintings in the Wellington Museum, London, 1982.
(38) Such displays were not confined to the reception rooms. Ford also notes that on the mantelpiece in Wellington's study, beneath portraits of lady Jersey and Lady Douro 'he had stowed away some small casts--one of Napoleon with his eagle-look when consul;--others of the Chancellors Brougham and Lyndhurst'. Ibid., p. 479.
(39) Quoted in Longford, op. cit., p. 508.
Julius Bryant is Keeper of Word & Image at the Victoria & Albert Museum and author of Apsley House: The Wellington Collection (2005).
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| Author: | Bryant, Julius |
|---|---|
| Publication: | Apollo |
| Geographic Code: | 4EUUK |
| Date: | Oct 1, 2005 |
| Words: | 5221 |
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