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Lot Essay
Probably painted in 1833, this watercolour was engraved by Edward Goodall as the title-page vignette to volume IX of Sir Walter Scott's Life of Napoleon, published as Scott's Prose Works, 1834-6, volume XVI. It is one of sixteen illustrations, both vignettes and landscapes, done by Turner for the Life; in all he executed 42 illustrations to Scott's Prose Works and 24 to Scott's Poetical Works, 1834, on commission from Scott's publisher Robert Cadell. (For Turner's illustrations to Scott see Finley, op. cit. and Piggott, op. cit., pp. 57-9).
Following his defeat at Waterloo and his abdication, Napoleon had been forced to retire to Rochefort, near La Rochelle. There he planned to sail to America, but the British Admiralty under Lord Keith ordered a blockade along the coast between Brest and Bayonne. Ordered to leave France, Napoleon wrote on 13 July 1815 to the Prince Regent asking for British hospitality. Captain Maitland, in command of the 'Bellerophon', negotiated with the Duke of Rovigo and Count Las Casas and told them that he had 'no authority whatever for granting terms of any sort but that all I can do is to carry him and his suite to England'. On 15 July Napoleon boarded the 'Bellerophon' and on the 26th the Admiralty ordered the ship to sail from Dartmouth to Plymouth Sound. Scott writes: 'That frenzy of popular curiosity, which, predominating in all free states, seems to be carried to the utmost excess by the English nation, caused such numbers of boats to surround the 'Bellerophon' that notwithstanding the peremptory orders of the Admiralty, and in spite of the efforts of the man-of-war's boats, which maintained constant guard round the vessel, it was almost impossible to keep them at the prescribed distance of a cable's length from the ship. They incurred the risk of being run down - of being, as they might apprehend, shot (for muskets were discharged for the purpose of intimidation), of all the dangers of a naval combat, rather than lose the opportunity of seeing the Emperor whom they had heard so much of. When he appeared he was greeted with huzzas, which he returned with bows, but could not help expressing his wonder at the eagerness of popular curiosity, which he was not accustomed to see in such a pitch of excitation'. Sir Henry Bunbury later told the Emperor on board ship that the British Government intended to send him to St. Helena. Turner's friend Sir Charles Eastlake was present at the scene.
Napoleon, the colossus of his time, features in a number of Turner's works, both oils and watercolours, including War: The Exile and the Rock Limpet, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1842, and the Napoleonic Wars provided a series of subjects for Turner from the lost Battle of the Nile, Royal Academy 1799, onwards.
Following his defeat at Waterloo and his abdication, Napoleon had been forced to retire to Rochefort, near La Rochelle. There he planned to sail to America, but the British Admiralty under Lord Keith ordered a blockade along the coast between Brest and Bayonne. Ordered to leave France, Napoleon wrote on 13 July 1815 to the Prince Regent asking for British hospitality. Captain Maitland, in command of the 'Bellerophon', negotiated with the Duke of Rovigo and Count Las Casas and told them that he had 'no authority whatever for granting terms of any sort but that all I can do is to carry him and his suite to England'. On 15 July Napoleon boarded the 'Bellerophon' and on the 26th the Admiralty ordered the ship to sail from Dartmouth to Plymouth Sound. Scott writes: 'That frenzy of popular curiosity, which, predominating in all free states, seems to be carried to the utmost excess by the English nation, caused such numbers of boats to surround the 'Bellerophon' that notwithstanding the peremptory orders of the Admiralty, and in spite of the efforts of the man-of-war's boats, which maintained constant guard round the vessel, it was almost impossible to keep them at the prescribed distance of a cable's length from the ship. They incurred the risk of being run down - of being, as they might apprehend, shot (for muskets were discharged for the purpose of intimidation), of all the dangers of a naval combat, rather than lose the opportunity of seeing the Emperor whom they had heard so much of. When he appeared he was greeted with huzzas, which he returned with bows, but could not help expressing his wonder at the eagerness of popular curiosity, which he was not accustomed to see in such a pitch of excitation'. Sir Henry Bunbury later told the Emperor on board ship that the British Government intended to send him to St. Helena. Turner's friend Sir Charles Eastlake was present at the scene.
Napoleon, the colossus of his time, features in a number of Turner's works, both oils and watercolours, including War: The Exile and the Rock Limpet, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1842, and the Napoleonic Wars provided a series of subjects for Turner from the lost Battle of the Nile, Royal Academy 1799, onwards.