See also Anne Godlewska, "Resisting the Cartographic Imperative: Giuseppe Bagetti's Landscapes of War"
(This article is still in rough page proof stage. The final copy will be posted as soon as it is available).
On the Images Displayed Here
This map presents a selection of 22 works mostly executed by Giuseppe Pietro Bagetti (1764-1831), a court painter who sketched and painted between 1802 and 1809 for the Napoleonic forces making commemorative paintings of Napoleonic battles in Northern Italy. Two of the gouaches are by Bacler d'Albe and two watercolours are by Parent, an artist/military engineer working in Northern Italy at the same time as Bagetti. Bagetti generally produced pencil and crayon sketches on site and then worked up a finished watercolour in his studio. Oil paintings were probably commissioned tableau by tableau according to the deemed importance of the image (though there is no record of this in the surviving correspondence). The engravings were produced in order to engage a larger public in the Napoleonic wars, both during and after the wars. In fact, most, if not all of Bagetti’s finished watercolours and oils were also reproduced as engravings. Bagetti insisted on overseeing the production of the engravings. So it is unsurprising that they display little artistic licence, beyond that already present in the watercolours.
The images displayed here include only three media: oil paintings, finished watercolours, and pencil sketches. All but two of these are to be found at the Service historique de l’armée de terre. Numerous oil paintings and watercolours are on the walls (but not generally open to the public) in the art collection of the Château de Versailles. The Service historique de l’armée de terre probably has the largest number of watercolours (with a small number of oils). Some crayon or pencil sketches are also at the Service historique de l’armée de terre and there are two grand folio volumes of Bagetti’s French battlefield sketches at the Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Torino, Italy. The engravings are accessible at the Service historique de l’armée de terre and in large engraving collections, such as at the Bibliothèque nationale. This page suggests the potential of webpage technology as it is through such technology that it would be possible to compile Bagetti’s entire corpus from its disparate locations. Only then could we fully grasp the magnitude of his labours and the full force of his imagination.
To view these images according to the chronology of the battles please look at them in the following order:
Loano
Dego
Mondovi
Coni
Piacenza
Fombio
Lodi
Milan
Lonato
Primolano
Arcole
Rivoli
Madonna di Corona
Tagliamento
Casteggio
[Allegoria Napoleonica]