The Corsican Spider in His Web!

Thomas Rowlandson

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Woodward and Rowlandson here use a metaphor of consumption to present Napoleon at his most powerful. In July 1808, French armies completed their invasion of Spain. The emperor’s well-known profile and plumed bicorne hat are appended to a fat spider’s body inscribed "Unbounded Ambition." Sitting at the center of a large web, the spider-emperor prepares to eat two Spanish flies representing King Charles IV and his son Ferdinand, both forced to abdicate to clear the throne for Napoleon’s brother, Joseph Bonaparte. Other entangled flies are labeled "Austria," "Holland," "Hanover," "Prussia" and "Italy," each now a French puppet state. Portugal, in danger of being the next to fall, struggles along the outermost strand. The Russian fly and the Pope fly are lightly caught and express hopes of freeing themselves. Only the Turkish fly, in a jeweled turban, and the British fly, wearing the head of John-Bull, still evade the spider’s grasp.

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