#appiani

Of course it's ✨️him✨️

Napoleon at His Court — A Group Portrait, by Andrea Appiani, c. 1796-98

“Appiani’s drawing suggests how difficult it was for artists to come to terms with the strictly personal nature of Bonaparte’s initiatives… Monarchical imagery failed to capture a fundamental quality of Bonaparte’s rise to power: the triumph of individual will. Without the advantage of birth and lineage, he was an extreme example of revolutionary meritocracy to which contemporaries could respond positively. Appiani does not represent the victorious general as a prince, although something of the theater of hierarchy, characteristic of court imagery, lingers in the pivotal role attributed to Bonaparte.”

Napoleon entering Milan, 1796. From a fresco by Andrea Appiani.

THE EMPEROR

Two portraits of Francesca Lechi

1. By Giovanni Battista Gigola, 1800

2. By Andrea Appiani, 1803

Francesca Lechi was involved in Napoleonic events in Italy, such as the Revolution in Brescia, which took place when Napoleon’s army entered the region in 1797. She met Joachim Murat at a ball, and the two had an affair. She even followed him to Paris, until her husband wrote to Napoleon complaining of the situation. She was active in political events, procuring the fabric used for the tricolor flag hoisted on the Broletto in Brescia.

Stendhal, in Vie de Napoléon, said of her:

“Countess Gherardi, daughter of Count Lecchi, had perhaps the most beautiful eyes in Brescia, the land of beautiful eyes. She added to all her father’s genius a gentle cheerfulness, a real simplicity, which was never altered.”