Vincenzo Vela Swiss, (Ligornetto 1820 - 1891)

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Description

Vincenzo Vela
The Last Days of Napoleon
signed: V. VELA and inscribed: F BARBEDIENNE, FONDEUR
gilt bronze, on green veined marble base

Catalogue Note

Vela exhibited his model of Napoleon brooding in a chair over a map of his lost Empire at the Salon of 1867. It struck an immediate chord with a public whose anxiety over the eclipse of their country by Prussia was equalled by a nostalgia for the First Empire.

RELATED LITERATURE
Wardropper, I. & Licht, F. Chiseled With a Brush. Italian Sculpture 1860-1925 from the Gilgore Collections, Chicago, 1994, p.36, no.1