Portrait Autobiographique de S.M. Invastion III
Artist
Unknown
CultureFrench
Date1871
MediumLithograph
DimensionsOverall: 15 11/16 x 11 1/2 in. (39.8 x 29.2 cm)
Credit LineMuseum collection
Object number0.287
On View
Not on view
DescriptionA satirical lithograph, issued in the aftermath of the Paris siege, unfavourably comparing Napoleon III with his uncle Napoleon. It shows his nephew, ‘Invasion III’, with the corpses of those who died for his ambitions. He wears a cloak made from a map of his principal defeats (Strasbourg, Sedan, Boulogne, Mexico) and a sash bearing names Cayenne, Lambessa and La Rocamarie (the first two being French penal colonies the last being the site of the miner’s revolt immortalised in Zola’s Germinal). His hat is the Napoleonic eagle with a beak full of lard.