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7/6/2006

Napoleon on the Nile

Dahesh Museum of Art, New York

This summer the Dahesh Museum of Art continues its exploration of European Orientalism in the arts with Napoleon on the Nile: Soldiers, Artists, and the Rediscovery of Egypt, an exhibition devoted to the De'scription de L’E'gypte, an illustrated compendium published in the 19th century that shaped Europe’s understanding of Egypt and depictions of this distant land.

General Napoleon Bonaparte’s occupation of Egypt from1798 to 1801 was meant to disrupt Britain’s colonial empire. While his military exploits ended poorly, he achieved what was to be perhaps his greatest legacy: the publication of the multi-volume De'scription de L’E'gypte, widely acknowledged as the single most important European scholarly study of ancient and modern Egypt. This ambitious project, begun in 1809 and finished in1829, a decade after the General died, formed the foundation of the modern discipline of Egyptology. Along with an army of 36,000 men whose goal it was to wrest Egypt from the Mamelukes, Napoleon was accompanied by more than 150 savants or scientists—engineers, mathematicians, zoologists, botanists, archeologists, translators, journalists, artists, and physicians including Baron Vivant Denon, later to become the first director of the Louvre. While Napoleon fought to secure Egypt for the French, the savants were assigned to catalogue all of Egypt’s many wonders; from the architectural ruins of a still mysterious ancient civilization (some no longer extant) to the indigenous flora and fauna. The results took roughly twenty years and 2,000 skilled draftsmen and typographers to organize and complete. No other country had ever been studied in such depth. These 12 volumes of plates (accompanied by 24 volumes of text) became a sought-after image bank consulted by artists seeking authenticity in their own work. Soon fashionable 19th-century

Egyptian-themed buildings, interiors, clothes, decorative objects, and paintings. Napoleon on the Nile affords an intimate view of the astonishing range and precision of the De'scription‘s magnificent, large-scale illustrations, which influenced the course of “Egyptomania" and “Orientalism" in western fine and decorative arts for two centuries. Over 70 of the unbound black-and-white and color plates from the first and second editions, as well as some of the actual volumes themselves, will be on view, along with many vivid paintings from later in the 19th century drawn from the Museum’s important permanent collection of Orientalism that were influenced by them. In addition, the plates are contextualized by actual letters between Napoleon and his generals, British cartoons mocking the savants’ scientific adventures, prints and medals commemorating historic heroes and battles of the campaign as well as the publication of the De'scription, popular decorative artworks reflecting the European taste for Egyptian symbols, detailed maps of Egypt, and, of course, a mummy’s hand.

Lenders: The majority of works in the exhibition were drawn from the Dahesh Museum of Art’s permanent collection. The Museum’s Trustees and staff gratefully acknowledge our colleague Professor Bob Brier (C. W. Post College), the renowned Egyptologist and host of the PBS Series, The Great Egyptians, for his advice and enthusiastic encouragement. The Museum is also indebted to Princeton University Museum of Art and to generous private collectors for their loans to the exhibition.

Sponsors: Napoleon on the Nile is made possible, in part, by generous grants from the Samuel H. Kress Foundation and the Grand Marnier Foundation. Special thanks to The Napoleonic Alliance for its encouragement, and to the Robert Mondavi Winery in California for its in-kind and promotional support.

Press Preview: Tuesday, June 6 9:30 - 11:30 am

Dahesh Museum of Art
580 Madison Avenue (between 56th and 57th Streets) - New York
Hours: Tuesday - Sunday, 11 am - 6 pm, and until 9 pm on the first Thursday of each month. Closed Mondays

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