After Benjamin Robert Haydon
Lot 1403

After Benjamin Robert Haydon

Napoleon Bonaparte musing at St Helena

Closed31 October 2007

Price Realised

GBP 1,625

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After Benjamin Robert Haydon
Napoleon Bonaparte musing at St Helena
indistinctly inscribed with some of Napoleon's battles, signed and dated '...AUSTERLITZ - JENA/WATERLOO/B. R. HAYDON/1841' (on a stone pillar fragment to the lower right)
oil on canvas
30 x 25 in. (76.3 x 63.5 cm.)
After the painting in the National Portrait Gallery, London.

Specialist note

Haydon was a great admirer of Napoleon, and even bought his death mask. Throughout his career he painted many pictures of him, the prime version of this subject being first painted for Thomas Kearsey in 1829. The painting was engraved by E. J. Coombs and proved such a popular image that over the next few years he went on to paint another twenty-three versions of it.