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

Apollo, Oct, 2005 by Xavier F. Salomon, Christopher Woodward

'On the 15 May 1796, General Bonaparte made his entry into Milan at the head of the young army that had just marched over the bridge at Lodi, and showed the world that after so many centuries, there was now a successor to Caesar and Alexander.' So Stendhal began The Charterhouse of Parma. A few weeks after the conquest of Milan, Napoleon was painted by 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 how the campaign in Italy created a personal iconography for Napoleon. (1) One picture was absent from the sequence of portraits exhibited, however: a small oil sketch by Francesco Cossia painted in the spring of 1797 (Fig. 2) and today in the Breakfast Room of Sir John Soane's Museum in London (Fig. 6). This is the most puzzling and least known of the portraits of Napoleon in Italy; it was reproduced for the first time only this year.

[FIGURES 2 & 6 OMITTED]

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 Napoleon. And the client was not Josephine but an artist in London: Maria Cosway. When a small box arrived at her house on 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 old Napoleon was appointed to the command of the 30,000 bedraggled and dispirited soldiers of the army of Italy. Over the next twelve months he overthrew and conquered the states of northern Italy, humiliated the papacy, and shattered a succession of armies dispatched from Austria. By April 1797 he was within ninety miles of Vienna and was halted only when the emperor sued for peace. It had been the most 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 conquest of Italy; where they are venerated as a superior order of beings to whom nothing is impossible, and are looked upon in much the same way as the followers of Cortez were by the Mexicans'. (3)

After sitting for Appiani in Milan, Napoleon was drawn later that summer by Louis Lafitte (1770-1826) in Florence; (4) at the end of the year he was back in Milan and painted by, firstly, Louis Albert Bacler d'Albe (1761-1824) (5)--a painter of battle scenes--and, secondly, by 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 one day inspire Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People. Napoleon is depicted at the moment when he seized the tricolour and led his soldiers across a narrow wooden enemy bridge in the face of Austrian cannon.

[FIGURE 3 OMITTED]

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

Cossia's encounter with Napoleon is described in a letter to a Signor Borghini--probably an art dealer--dated 17 March 1797 and placed inside the same box as the picture. (7) Three days earlier Napoleon had arrived in Verona, at the beginning of his climactic march on Vienna. Cossia presented a letter 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 on canvass [sic] as on paper ... In little more than an hour, I was able to fix the physiognomy, and give it that thoughtful expression which you know is so striking in his countenance'. After dinner he asked to accompany Napoleon on his journey north, 'in order to improve the head, and give it a finished appearance'.

They stopped by the roadside for the night and 'I got up at sunrise, after having passed a sleepless night, from the noise of the horses, which were continually coming and going'. At breakfast the general was 'merry and affable' but the sitting was soon interrupted by the arrival of urgent dispatches. Napoleon marched towards Vienna, and the painter returned to Verona. He tells the story at such length, he explains, 'to pardon that I have not done better' to a lady 'who expected more and better from a Venetian painter'.