Mock Auction or Boney Selling Stolen Goods
Medium
Hand-colored etching
Dimensions
Sheet: 9 7/8 × 14 1/8 in. (25.1 × 35.9 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1959
Accession Number
59.533.1522
Tags
Art Historical Context
In the turbulent final years of the Napoleonic Wars, British satirists unleashed a barrage of caricatures mocking Emperor Napoleon I, often deriding him as "Boney" the diminutive plunderer. *Mock Auction or Boney Sellingolen Goods*, a hand-colored etching published by Rudolph Ackermann in London on 25, 1813, exemplifies this genre. Created by the prolific caricaturist Thomas Rowlandson it depicts Napoleon presiding over a chaotic auction of looted treasures, with figures like Empress Marie Louise and young Napoléon II possibly caricatured amid the ridicule. Measuring 9⅞ × 14⅛ inches, this prin...
About the Artist
Napoléon Bonaparte|Rudolph Ackermann, London|Empress Marie Louise of France|Thomas Rowlandson|Napoléon II, King of Rome and Duke of Reichstadt (French| ) · 1769 | –1821 |
French, Ajaccio 1769–1821 St. Helena|