Exanimate Sphinx cities is a precious and ultra-rare original etching and burin on paper, realized by an Italian artist between 1796-1799 c.a. An extraordinary and rare allegorical print of fine workmanship and difficult iconography, in very Good condition. At the Library of Congress in Washington, there is a copy like ours with a long handwritten caption entitled ''The 18th Brumaire Year VIII'': ''The landed Sphinx represents the horrible Revolution extinct in the 18th Brumaire year eighth. The Hero who defeated her, united with Fortune, accompanied by Victory, by Minerva, by Merit, by Valor planted on them the Republican Banner indicating that Age of new Constitution. Peace comes later by fixing the fate of the New Republics of various Potentates, of the Pope, and of Religions. The emblems hanging from the neck of the allegorical Sphinx are the / Mask and the Dagger of Brutus, sometimes used by it. The bodies crushed by her are the imprudent, who came too close: The ruins, the landed, or falling monuments, are the desolating habits of her passage, the irresistible power, the consequence of her existence. The trenches with the Artillery and the assembled Armies are the efforts of the Coalized. Telegraphs and aerostatic balloons indicate their distrust. = The Chariots remember the / robberies. The milk milked by the agonizing Beast is a symbol of the opinions and lights scattered by the Revolution. The Naval Fleet represents the despotism of England on the Sea. Istoria observes and writes. Philosophy with Nature grows stronger ''. The month of brumaire was the second month of the French revolutionary calendar and corresponded to the period between 22-24 October and 20-22 November in the Gregorian calendar. This etching may have been made on the occasion of the coming to power of Napoleon in France, on 9 November 1799, after the success of the Egyptian campaign. Some iconographic details recall the Napoleonic spoliation: on the right the group of the four bronze horses of the Basilica of San Marco were stolen in 1797 and brought to Paris and on the second chariot of ancient tomes. The Sphinx, on the other hand, perhaps represents France (looking at the hat9 or symbolically represents Venice or the Cisalpine Republic established by Napoleon in 1796. Under the sphinx four men are carrying a marble statue (perhaps Antonio Canova's Italic Venus) and two other men carrying a marble slab or perhaps a painting. The vessels placed under the breasts of the sphinx indicate the looting of art. in the background, instead, the castle of Julius II in ancient Ostia, the ruins of San Marco in Venice, San Pietro in Rome, a medieval building, classical ruins and the papal trope of the Sistine Chapel are recognizable. A second hypothesis sees this etching as the allegorical representation of the first Italian Campaign (1796-1797) and the proclamation of the republics. This incredible engraving, of which we only know one example in Washington collection and in a Milanese private collection is an extraordinary source for the history of the Napoleonic period and an essay of the extraordinary evocative power of historical-allegorical prints
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