From Kerry T - Napoleon Crossing the Alps (30 points)

Morning, afternoon and evening all

One of the nicest things I think you can do on holiday is to visit museums and galleries and over the years I've been fortunate enough to do this. I've really enjoyed some of the paintings I've seen

Its always interesting to look at famous paintings but whenever we get an opportunity to visit a major gallery or museum I'm always keen to head off and look at the military art on show.

One of the first times I came close to seeing an example was on a trip To Vienna where we visited the Belvedere Museum.

Napoleon Crossing the Alps by David

The painting commemorates Napoleon's epic journey leading the army across the Alps in 1800. I read that though Napoleon chose the scene, he refused to attend any sittings. Apparently David was instructed to show him "calm, mounted on a  fiery steed" and consequently ended up asking his son to sit on the top of a ladder in order to capture the pose but was apparently able to borrow the uniform that Napoleon had worn at Marengo.

Typical wargaming tourist that I am I came back with a notebook, postcard and a print that I thought would look great in my games room. 

The notebook

Framing postcards is a cheap way to get Military art in your games room

Somewhere though between Vienna, the UK and NZ I lost the print I'd bought!

Fortunately the story does have a happy ending in that on of my birthdays my son had bought me a replacement, and it now hangs in the hallway outside my study and painting room

Its a little different from the one I saw in the Belvedere though...

It seems that David actually painted five versions (story here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleon_Crossing_the_Alps )

The link above advises that the version at the top of this post showing Napoleon in the red cloak is the 1803 version and was delivered to Milan but confiscated by the Austrians in 1816 being finally installed at the Belvedere in 1834. 

My hallway picture just above is apparently the 1801 version.

Guess what my son sent me for Christmas this year - As advertised on wargames foundry site https://www.wargamesfoundry.com/search?q=Napoleon

Thus I give you Napoleon Crossing the Alps by Jacques-Louis David err Kerry Wynn Thomas 😉🎨

Please therefore accept this entry as my "Art or artistic" contribution to the library section

In Summary

28mm Mounted figure 10 points

Art bonus @ 20 points

Grand total 30 points - hopefully I've not managed to repeat the dreadful and embarrassing mathematical error I did last week when claiming my points!

From Millsy: I've always been a huge fan of this series of paintings for so many reasons. All the various things that happened to the individual versions is a story unto itself. Your own execution in 3D is a wonderful exploration of the subject Kerry and I particularly like the composition with the larger base and lack of groundcover forcing your eye upwards onto the subject. Choosing the golden cloaked iteration is a nice change as most are painted red I would think. Points are spot on you are forgiven by the score gods mate.