Murat reviewing the Grand army!!!!!

George Cruikshank

Murat reviewing the Grand army!!!!!

London, S Knight, Jan 1813

Etching

Original hand colouring

240 x 350 mm

Trimmed within platemark

£320

Murat, on a miserably decrepit horse which stands (left) in profile to the left, looks over his shoulder, horrified at the remnants of the army, a row of nine ragged and emaciated scarecrows. All are grotesquely burlesqued. Murat is in better case than the ‘Army’, but his horse is a skin-covered skeleton; its hollow flank is inscribed ‘Boney Part’ [cf. No. 11520]. He wears a plumed bicorne like that of Napoleon and huge lack-boots with monstrous spurs. He says: “If I be not ashamed of my Soldiers I’ll be D—d, by Gar they are truly Miserable! the very scum of the Earth: the Refuse of Mankind the Sweepings of Hospitals & Workhouses! Dunghill Cocks, not fit to Carry guts to a Bear!! Wretches with Hearts in their bellies no bigger then pin’s heads Slaves as ragged as Lazarus—there isn’t half an inch of Shirt amongst them all!! Zounds the Russians will think I have unloaded all the Gibbets, & prest the dead bodies. but—however the Crows & the Cossacks will soon put an end to them.” The men are of different sizes, shapes, and arms, and recede in perspective from right to left. On the extreme right a man wearing a cocked hat and enormous spurred jack-boots holds a battered sabre. Next, a ragged drummer wearing bonnet rouge and sabots; then a tall grenadier with a musket. Then an elderly officer of civilian appearance, wearing spectacles, holds up a grotesque, decapitated eagle spatchcocked on its staff, with tricolour rags inscribed ‘Leigeon of Honor’. The next man wears trousers and holds a musket, as does the one-eyed cripple next him. A cavalryman with a plumed helmet and sabre is almost naked. A knock-kneed grenadier has lost his right arm. The last man wears a bonnet rouge.

The severe Russian winter contributed to Napoleon’s defeat in 1812, creating a turning point in the long war. In early December, Napoleon abandoned his army to thwart a coup d’etat in France and entrusted command to his brother-in-law, the flamboyant Joachim Murat, King of Naples. Overwhelmed and claiming ill health, on 17 January 1813, Murat left for Naples to save his throne. This print by George Cruikshank was published the same month.