Napoleon in Egypt

Eugène Samuel Grasset

1895

Printed by the Century Co., New York

Montreal Museum of Fine Arts

A man in military attire on a white horse gestures towards pyramids in the background, with soldiers marching behind him. Midway between the fine and the decorative arts, Eugène Grasset’s oeuvre reflects both a nostalgia for the past and a desire for innovation. The memory of Napoleon was being revived in all fields of art and is to be found in Grasset’s Art Nouveau compositions. In the first of the works shown here he depicts General Bonaparte in Egypt giving a fiery speech to spur his troops into battle, uttering the famous words: “From the Pyramids yonder, forty centuries look down on you.” The second poster commemorates the victory of Austerlitz. The figure of the heroic general on horseback stands out against a huge cloud of battle smoke, from whi