Anonymous - Lot 47

Anonymous Ô! le Grand sot. Anti-Napoleonic cartoon. 1815. Etching. Sight: 190x280mm. De Vinck 9735. Fine proof on laid paper, gouached, slightly sunned, pasted by the edges on the verso under passe-partout. Margins. Napoleon ("Le Grand Sot") takes off and attempts to land on the Belerephon with a prodigious leap from Mount Saint-Jean. This mountain in Belgium's Walloon Brabant region lies on the opposite side of the escarpment from where the Battle of Waterloo took place. The Belerephon was a warship of the British Royal Navy. On July 15, 1815, it was aboard this ship that Napoleon Bonaparte officially surrendered near the Isle of Aix, hoping to obtain asylum in Great Britain. Unfortunately for him, the British decided to exile him to the South Atlantic island of St. Helena.