Napoleon as Mars the Peacemaker
| Napoleon as Mars the Peacemaker | |
|---|---|
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| Artist | Antonio Canova |
| Year | 1802-1806 |
| Medium |
white marble gilded bronze |
| Dimensions | 345 cm (136 in) |
| Location | Apsley House, London |
Napoleon as Mars the Peacemaker is a colossal heroic nude statue by the Italian artist Antonio Canova, of Napoleon I of France in the guise of the Roman god Mars. He holds a gilded Nike or Victory standing on an orb in his right hand and a staff in his left. It was produced between 1802 and 1806 and stands 3.45 metres to the raised left hand. Once on display in the Louvre in Paris, it was purchased from Louis XVIII in 1816 by the British government, which granted it to the Duke of Wellington. It is now on display in Robert Adam's stairwell at the Duke's London residence, Apsley House.
At Napoleon's personal and insistent demand, Canova came to Paris in 1802 to model a bust of him, before returning to Rome to work on the full sculpture. Its idealised nude physique draws on the iconography of Augustus, and it was always intended for an interior entrance-hall setting rather than as a freestanding piazza sculpture, though some accounts give the centre of the courtyard of the Palazzo del Senato as the original intended site for the sculpture, following plans drawn up by the architect Luigi Canonica. France's ambassador in Rome François Cacault and the director of French museums Vivant Denon both saw the sculpture while it was a work in progress: Cacault wrote in 1803 that it "must become the most perfect work of this century", whilst Denon wrote back to Napoleon in 1806 that it belonged indoors in the Musée Napoléon "among the emperors and in the niche where the Laocoon is, in such a manner that it would be the first object that one sees on entering". It was completed in 1806 and transported to the Musée Napoléon, but when Napoleon saw it there in April 1811 he refused to accept it, calling it "too athletic" and banning the public from seeing it.
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