Sketch for The Revolt of Cairo
Medium
Oil and ink on paper, laid down on canvas
Dimensions
30.8 × 45.1 cm (12 1/8 × 17 3/4 in.); Framed: 43.2 × 58.5 × 6.4 cm (17 × 23 × 2 1/2 in.)
Classification
oil on paper
Department
Painting and Sculpture of Europe
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
152851
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
This is a preparatory sketch for a monumental painting depicting one of the bloodiest moments of Napoleon’s 1798 invasion of Egypt: the suppression of an uprising in Cairo. The conflict included a massacre in the Al-Azhar Mosque of Mamelukes, a military class of enslaved men who occupied much of the Middle East at that time. As there were no surviving eyewitness reports, Girodet was free to interpret the event as he wished, and, as a commission from Napoleon, the painting celebrates the French p...