What are some rare or unexpected illustrations of Napoleon?

Answer 1

If you are looking beyond the famous heroic portraits of Napoleon, there are quite a few unusual contemporary and near-contemporary representations worth investigating.

One particularly interesting category is British caricature. Artists such as James Gillray, George Cruikshank, and Thomas Rowlandson depicted Napoleon very differently from official French portraiture. He appears as an absurdly small, angry, greedy, or frightened figure rather than the commanding emperor familiar from paintings by Jacques-Louis David.

Gillray's “The Plumb-pudding in danger” (1805) is probably the best-known example. Napoleon and British prime minister William Pitt sit at a table carving up a globe as though it were dinner.

Another striking example is Gillray's “Maniac-raving's—or Little Boney in a strong fit” (1803), which turns Napoleon into the comic “Little Boney” of British propaganda.

It is also worth searching for:

1. caricatures showing Napoleon confronted by John Bull, the personification of Britain;
2. Russian and German anti-Napoleonic prints produced during the later wars;
3. images of Napoleon following the disastrous Russian campaign, which contrast strongly with his earlier imperial imagery;
4. depictions of Napoleon aboard HMS Bellerophon after his surrender in 1815;
5. drawings and prints of Napoleon during his exile on St. Helena, where he is shown as an aging, isolated former emperor rather than a military conqueror;
6. contemporary satirical images of his attempted return from Elba and final defeat.

There are also interesting differences between Napoleon's carefully constructed public image and more informal representations. Official artists generally emphasized Roman-imperial symbolism, military authority, and physical dignity, while hostile caricaturists exaggerated his height, ambition, temper, sexuality, and appetite for conquest.

For primary-source images, I would search the online collections of the British Museum, British Library, Bibliothèque nationale de France, National Portrait Gallery, and Gallica using terms such as “Napoleon caricature,” “Buonaparte,” “Little Boney,” and “St Helena Napoleon.”

If your goal is specifically to find something visually unexpected, British caricatures from approximately 1798–1815 are probably the richest source. They show a Napoleon almost completely opposite to the monumental figure presented in official French art.