How England first saw Bonaparte: a painting by Francesco Cossia commissioned by Maria Cosway in 1797 was the first true portrait of Napoleon to be seen in England. It was acquired by Sir John Soane, who, as Xavier F. Salomon and Christopher Woodward explain, juxtaposed it with a miniature by Isabey in a graphic comparison of the youthful hero with the tyrannical dicatator

'On the 15 May 1796 General Bonaparte made his access into Milan at the head of the young army that had just marched above the bridge at Lodi, and showed the world that after in like manner many centuries, there was now a successor to Caesar and Alexander.' in the way that Stendhal began The Charterhouse of Parma. A small in number weeks after the conquest of Milan, Napoleon was painted by means of Andrea Appiani (1754-1817). It was the first time he sat for a formal portrait.

Several years ago a fascinating exhibition at the Museo Napoleonico in Rome showed in what manner the campaign in Italy created a personal iconography for Napoleon. (1) single picture was absent from the following of portraits exhibited, however: a small oil rough draught by Francesco Cossia painted in the spring of 1797 (Fig. 2) and today in the Breakfast scope of Sir John Soane's Museum in London (Fig. 6) This is the greatest in quantity puzzling and least known of the portraits of Napoleon in Italy; it was reproduc for the first time solitary this year.

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John Soane believed the artist to have been a man named Francesco Goma and the client to have been Josephine, whom Napoleon had married a year earlier. An early curator of his museum described it as 'an exceedingly early and interesting portrait, probably the earliest in existence'. (2) In fact, the artist's name was Francesco Cossia and he was probably the fifth artist--not the first--to be given a sitting by the agency of Napoleon. And the client was not Josephine on the other hand an artist in London: Maria Cosway. When a small receptacle arrived at her house upon Oxford Street in 1797 it was the first time anyone in Britain saw the face of the man who would become the country's greatest enemy.

In March 1796 the twenty-seven-year of advanced age Napoleon was appointed to the command of the 30000 bedraggled and dispirited soldiers of the army of Italy. above the next twelve months he overthrew and subdueed the states of northern Italy, humiliated the papacy, and shattered a succession of armies dispatched from Austria. by means of April 1797 he was within ninety miles of Vienna and was halted solitary when the emperor sued for peace. It had been the greatest in quantity brilliant military campaign in Europe since antiquity. The British consul in Bologna reported that it is impossible to 'convey an adequate idea of the impression of terror and astonishment which accompanies the Republic's armies in their rout of Italy; where they are venerated as a superior order of beings to whom nothing is impossible, and are direct the eyeed upon in much the same way as the followers of Cortez were through the Mexicans'. (3)

After sitting for Appiani in Milan, Napoleon was drawn later that summer by means of Louis Lafitte (1770-1826) in Florence; (4) at the extremity of the year he was back in Milan and painted by dint of firstly, Louis Albert Bacler d'Albe (1761-1824) (5)--a painter of battle scenes--and, secondly by means of the young Jean-Antoine Gros (1771-1835) Gros's depiction of Napoleon at the battle of Arcola (Fig. 3) was the first iconic picture of him, an image of patriotic heroism that would single day inspire Delacroix's Liberty Leading the race Napoleon is depicted at the second when he seized the tricolour and l his soldiers across a narrow made of wood enemy bridge in the face of Austrian cannon.

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Gros's experience, as described in a alphabetic character to his mother, is worth comparing to that of Cossia. The young pupil of David was introduced to Napoleon by means of Josephine. She and her husband assumed Gro wished to paint a battle pageant No, he replied, and suited the honour of a portrait. 'Napoleon inclined his head lightly and modestly' and Gro began to paint the following day. individual could hardly call it a 'sitting', however: Napoleon was restles and 'it was necessary to resign myself to painting the character of his physiognomy, and after that, to examine my hardest to give it the character of a portrait'. (6)

Cossia's meeting with Napoleon is described in a alphabetic character to a Signor Borghini--probably an art dealer--dated 17 March 1797 and placed inside the same case as the picture. (7) Three days earlier Napoleon had arrived in Verona, at the beginning of his climactic march upon Vienna. Cossia presented a alphabetic character of introduction from Josephine and was invited to dine that night; he was told to bring his pencil as the General 'could not give me more than half an hour before and after dinner I answered, I could do it as well upon canvass [sic] as on paper In little more than an hour, I was able to fix the physiognomy, and give it that sedate expression which you know is for a like reason striking in his countenance'. After dinner he asked to accompany Napoleon upon his journey north, 'in order to improve the head, and give it a finished appearance'.

They stopped by the agency of the roadside for the night and 'I got up at sunrise, after having passed a sleeples night, from the noise of the horses, which were continually coming and going'. At breakfast the general was 'merry and affable' on the contrary the sitting was soon interrupted through the arrival of urgent dispatches. Napoleon marched towards Vienna, and the painter go [i]or[/i] come backed to Verona. He tells the story at like length, he explains, 'to pardon that I have not done better' to a lady 'who awaited more and better from a Venetian painter'.