Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte At Waterloo, June 18, 1815 After Charles De Steuben (1788-1856)

Costanzo ANGELINI.1760-1853.
Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte at Waterloo, June 18, 1815 after Charles DE STEUBEN (1788-1856)
Circa 1850
Pen and black ink, gray wash over black pencil lines
Signed and captioned: “Costanzo Angelini per il Cavaliere Gustavo Mellini Tenente Colonnello d'artiglieria fece”
68 x 98 cm ((26 3/4 x 38 5/8 in.) With frame 105.5 x 76 cm
Provenance
Gustavo Mellini Collection (c.1790-c.1888), according to the artist’s caption
Gallery Maurizio Nobile Fine Art, Milano

Costanzo Angelini, leader of the neoclassics in Naples 

He was born in Santa Giusta in Abruzzo on October 22, 1760. Gifted with precocious talent, he went to Rome with his brother Lorenzo tostudy letters with an uncle. But very quickly, he was attracted to the fine arts and attended the school of Pietro Bianchi and Marco Caprinozzi for painting. His pencil drawings with incisive and precise contours in a neo-classical style were praised by David, Girodet and other professors at the French Academy whose courses were then also open to Italians. The fame of the young Costanzo was such that he was entrusted with the task of creating 34 plates engraved and published by Volpato and Morghen in their work bringing together the masterpieces of classical statuary: Principi del disegno tratti dalle più eccellenti statue antiche (1786 Rome). In 1790, he moved to Naples, where he was responsible for designing the Greek vases from the collection of the English ambassador Sir William Hamilton for Ferdinand IV of Bourbon. After having attended for some time the Academy of San Carlo alle Mortelle and the porcelain factory of Capodimonte, he became closer to the Neapolitan academic world: he taught drawing at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of Naples before becoming its Director. In 1812, he was charged with directing the engraving workshop of the Imprimerie Royale; in 1813, he was appointed superintendent of the restoration of ancient paintings at the Royal Museum of Bourbon. In Naples he is extremely famous for his portraits of the aristocracy, so much so that he was considered one of the best Italian portrait painters of the early 19th century. He painted Marie Caroline of Austria and Admiral Nelson, but the change of regime brought him closer to Bonapartist power. In 1808, Caroline Murat, of whom he also painted a portrait now kept at the San Martino Museum, commissioned a painting representing her brother Joseph based on a work by Jean-Baptiste Wicar. It was certainly at the request of the Murats that he made the copy of the Battle of Aboukir, after Antoine Jean Gros.

Napoleon at Waterloo, a famous image

Our drawing copies a famous work known thanks to the numerous engravings which reproduced it. It is Napoleon at Waterloo presented at the Salon of 1835 by Charles de Steuben, a painter specializing in historical subjects and very popular with Louis-Philippe I for whom he painted numerous paintings for the Museum of the History of France created in Versailles . Critics warmly welcome this painting by Steuben which illustrates a passage from the memoirs of MM Gourgaud and Fleury de Chaboulon cited in the Salon booklet :« At Waterloo at the disastrous moment when fortune abandoned our weapons,no longer hoping to win, the Emperor pushed his horse into the middle of the last reserve battalion, illustrious and unfortunate remains of the granite column from the fields of Marengo, which occupied the same ground where, a few hours earlier, he had been victorious. Cambronne, in the midst of these brave men, had expressed their thoughts, no one wanted to fall alive into the hands of the enemy. The Emperor came to offer himself to death; everything was falling around him, and the old dying grenadiers, instead of thinking about their wounds, were only concerned with the danger that threatened him. Marshal Soult alone dared to beg the Emperor to withdraw; Generals Drouot, Gourgaud and all those around him joined their efforts to his. They finally took theEmperor's horse by the bridle and led him in spite of himself ». Depicting this fateful moment in European history, the painting was also a great success among artists who continued to transpose it into engraving. In France, the most famous prints reproducing the work arethose produced by Jean-Pierre-Marie Jazet and Colin. Our drawing may have been based on one of these two works. With dimensions very close to the Jazet engraving kept at Malmaison, it testifies to the meticulousness and excellence of Angelini's line. The dedication seems to reveal that the drawing was not intended to be reproduced but to be carefully preserved by its recipient.

A drawing for an intimate of Napoleon I 

Angelini indicates that he made the drawing for Gustavo Mellini (c.1790-c.1888). He is a member of an illustrious family from the Island of Elba in the service of Napoleon during his exile. His uncle Giacomo Mellini (1759-1842) took part in the Italian campaign before accompanying the Emperor to Elba. His cousin Rosa became a reader for Letizia Bonaparte, who then kept her with her until her death in 1836. Gustavo also enters the service of the Emperor. An unpublished document, rediscovered in the archives of Count Agostino Fantoni, testifies to the link which united him to the exiled Emperor. It is  a plan to transform the Villa San Martino into an imperial residence imagined by Giacomo and designed by Gustavo Mellini. The latter will subsequently become lieutenant-colonel of artillery as indicated by the artist's dedication.

Literature 

• André Michel, Histoire de l'artdepuis les premiers temps chrétiens jusqu'à nos jours. Tome VIII, 2èmepartie, A. Colin, 1926, Paris,
• Bindi Vicenzo,Artisti abruzzesi : pittori, scultori, architetti, maestri di musica,fonditori, cesellatori, figuli dagli antichi a 'moderni : notizie e documenti,Napoli, 1883
• Cioffi Rosanna,"Nuovi dipinti di Domenico Chelli: scenografo, pittore, architettofiorentino e massone", in "Napoli Nobilissima", s. VII, v. VI,fasc. III, settembre-dicembre 2020, pp. 51-65.
• FardellaPaola, Del collezionismo privato di dipinti a Napoli. 1799-1860,Tesi didottorato di ricerca in "Discipline storiche dell'Arte medioevale, modernae contemporanea. Storia e critica delle arti figurative nell'Italiameridionale", Università degli Studi di Napoli "Federico II",1999,
• Guardascione Ezekiele,Enciclopedia Italiana, Ottorino Uffreduzzi, 1929