Article: How Canova and Wellington honoured Napoleon: when the Duke of Wellington was given Canova's monumental statue of Napoleon as Mars in 1816, he placed it in the stairwell of Apsley House in London. This position is often interpreted as a calculated insult to the duke's old foe, but, as Julius Bryant argues, it was in fact a carefully thought-out tribute.

Few classic works of art in London make such an immediate and lasting impression as does Canova's statue Napoleon as Mars the Peacemaker (1802-1806) at Apsley House, Piccadilly (Fig. 1). Napoleon's familiar remark made after his retreat from Moscow in 1812 could almost equally apply to the sculpture he commissioned: 'Du sublime au ridicule il n'ya qu'un pas'. (1) Bought by the British government from Louis XVIII for 66,000 francs in 1816, the year after Waterloo, it was presented by the Prince Regent to the Duke of Wellington and has stood in the stairwell of his townhouse since 1817. The statue has prompted much research and articles about the commission but none has ...

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