Marshal Ney Supporting the Rear Guard During the Retreat from Moscow

Adolphe Yvon 30/01/1817 - 11/09/1893

Summary

Yvon's painting represents the disastrous culmination of Napoleon's invasion of Russia in 1812. Finding that Moscow had been set alight by retreating Russian forces, Napoleon was forced to turn back in terrible winter conditions. Freezing cold, starvation and disease, more than rearguard enemy action, resulted in the loss of most of the army of almost half a million men. The central figure is the French military hero, Marshal Michel Ney, who was in command of the army's rear guard. The scene of desolation is intensified by a drab, cold palette with touches of scarlet, in which the French uniform has been reduced to a chilling ice blue, while the most prominent verticals in this broad sweep of devastated landscape are dying trees and the limp, tattered tricolore. This painting is a replica of a subject commissioned by Louis Napoleon in 1852, which was exhibited at the Salon of that year and again at the Universal Exposition of 1855 (no. 4218). The most marked difference is in the trees, which in the Manchester painting have fewer branches. The painting was conceived as undisguised propaganda for the glory of the regimes of Napoleon III and his namesake. Yvon, who was born in Eschweiler, Prussia, trained with Paul Delaroche (1797-1856) at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris. His paintings of patriotic military exploits made him a favourite of Napoleon III, and in 1856 he was appointed official military painter of the Crimean War. His Prise de la tour de Malakoff, painted on location in1855, was shown to great acclaim at the Salon of 1857 and again at the Universal Exposition of 1867. His reputation went into natural decline with the fall of the Second Empire in 1870.

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Marshal Ney Supporting the Rear Guard During the Retreat From Moscow 1856 Adolphe Yvon 1817-1893 Oil on canvas Yvon's painting represents the disastrous culmination of Napoleon's Russian invasion of 1812. Having led 450,000 men across the River Niemen he was forced to turn back at Moscow, which had been torched by retreating Russian forces. The central figure is the French hero Marshal Michel Ney who was given command of the army's rear guard. Temperatures below -25°C killed as many as the enemy: by December only 13,000 of the Grand Army remained. Much of the anguish reflected by Romantic art is rooted in the French Revolution and the wars and political unrest which followed. Transferred from the Royal Manchester Institution 1882.7