Magical Print: the devil with a hidden silhouette of Napoleon
19th century
Medium
Hand-colored etching
Dimensions
Sheet: 7 1/8 × 5 3/8 in. (18.1 × 13.7 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
The Glenn Tilley Morse Collection, Bequest of Glenn Tilley Morse, 1950
Accession Number
50.602.213
Tags
Art Historical Context
Step into the intriguing world of 19th political satire with *Magical Print: the devil with a hidden silhouette Napoleon*, an anonymous hand-colored etching from the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Drawings and Prints department. Measuring a compact 7 1/8 × 5 3/8 inches, this small yet potent sheet captures the era's fervor against Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of the French (1769–1821). Produced during or shortly after his tumultuous reign, it embodies the wave of caricatures that demonized him as a tyrant, blending sharp wit with visual trickery. At first glance, the image reveals a mischievous ...
About the Artist
Anonymous|Napoléon Bonaparte
In the vast tapestry of art history, "Anonymous" stands not as a singular individual but as a collective designation for countless unidentified creators whose works have endured across millennia. These artists, spanning prehistoric cave painters to medieval illuminators and folk craftsmen, produced the foundational layers of human visual culture. Prior to the Renaissance, when individual fame emer...