Drawing on History: Broadsides against Boney

Part of the series Cartoon Times / Drawing on History

By Mark Bryant | Published in History Today Volume: 60 Issue: 1

Mark Bryant admires a Russian artist whose lampoons of Napoleon inspired some notable British caricaturists.

Napoleon’s invasion of Russia in June 1812 led not only to the formation of the Sixth Coalition against France (Britain, Portugal, Spain and Russia, joined later by Prussia, Austria and Sweden) but also to the ending of the tsar’s 200-year-old ban on personal caricature. Between 1812 and 1814 more than 200 satirical prints targeting the French emperor and his circle appeared in Moscow and St Petersburg, some of which were reprinted in London and influenced the work of George Cruikshank, Thomas Rowlandson and others. This period also saw the emergence of the first professional caricaturists in Russia, notably the short-lived Ivan Terebenev (1780-1815),who died five months before the Napoleonic Wars ended, aged just 34.

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Historical dictionary: Napoleon I

Tags: Art ,Napoleonic Era,France,

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