From Top to Bottom, or Cause and Effect (Du haut en bas...ou les causes et les effets)

Elie

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Published in Paris shortly after Napoleon’s abdication, this satire suggests that the emperor fell because he attempted to wage simultaneous campaigns on opposite sides of Europe. French armies had successfully invaded Spain in 1808 but soon encountered guerrilla resistance backed by British troops. A series of defeats in 1812 forced a withdrawal over the Pyrenees. That same year Napoleon led his Grand Armée into Russia and captured Moscow, but again had to retreat after suffering heavy losses, brutal weather and inadequate supplies. This image shows the emperor falling from splintering stilts that still rest precariously on Madrid and Moscow. Dropping the imperial orb and scepter, he will land at Fontainebleau Palace, where he formally abdicated on April 11, 1814. Unlike British prints, this French image of Napoleon presents a wistful meditation on the downfall of a great man.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.

Metropolitan Museum of Art