Andrea Appiani

Anonymous sale, Christie's, Paris, 23 March 2006, lot 239;

Where acquired by the present owner.

Brussels, Musée d'Ixelles, De Giorgione à Tiepolo: Dessins italiens du 15^e au 18^e dans les collections privées et publiques de Belgique, October-December 1993, no. 8.

Andrea Appiani’s most important and well-known work was the decoration of the Palazzo Reale in Milan, dedicated to the glory of Napoleon and the splendours of the Empire. The decorative scheme was regarded as the masterpiece of Neoclassical Italian art.

The drawing is a preparatory study for the monumental fresco that decorated the ceiling of the throne room in the Palazzo, which he completed in 1808. The Emperor, as majestic and imposing as the chief god on Olympus, is surrounded by the Horae, while four Victories support the throne, beneath which there is an eagle. The decoration was mostly destroyed during the Second World War. Only the Apotheosis of Napoleon as Jupiter in Triumph and The Four Cardinal Virtues that adorned the glasses in the throne room, escaped total destruction (now in the Villa Carlotta in Tremezzo, on Lake Como).

Although displaying many variations, the composition of the Apotheosis of Napoleon as Jupiter in Triumph was inspired by a project planned by the artist in 1803–1804: Napoleon as Jupiter in Triumph after the Defeat of the Giants. This was never executed and only a preparatory drawing survives.

A study for the present drawing is in the Albertina in Vienna, while the Musée du Louvre has the cartoon, which was shown in the exhibition Cartons d’artistes du XVe au XIXe siècles, Musée du Louvre, Paris, 1974, no. 40, pl. XXIII.

Andrea Appiani, from Lombardy, was one of the major painters of the Napoleonic myth and the principal disseminator of Napoleon’s image, before and after he became Emperor, to his fellow citizens. He was admired by Napoleon who appointed him first painter to the King of Italy in 1805. An outstanding painter of frescoes – Antonio Canova described him as ‘the greatest living fresco artist’ – he spent several years working on the decoration of the Palazzo Reale in Milan, which would be his most important work. In addition to the throne room, he painted the Hall of the Rotonda and the Hall of the Caryatids (see lot 29). He also painted many portraits of Napoleon as First Consul and later as Emperor, as well as of Empress Josephine and the whole imperial family.