The Allied Bakers or the Corsican Toad in the Hole
George Cruikshank British
After George Humphrey British
Publisher Hannah Humphrey British
Not on view
A few days after this print appeared Napoleon abdicated his imperial crown. To convey this dramatic reversal of fortune, Humphrey and Cruikshank transformed a famous 1806 composition by Gillray (shown nearby). The bakers are now allied generals who prepare to consign the tiny figure of the fallen emperor to the flames (although Napoleon was not executed but exiled). Gebhardt von Blücher, who led Prussian troops to victory over the French at Leipzig in 1813, approaches the oven from the left, assisted by Russian and Swedish generals. At the right, the British Duke of Wellington, whose armies pushed the French out of Spain, brings pies containing trophies of those victories. The Austrian emperor Francis I pretends the oven door is stuck. As Napoleon’s father-in-law, he had urged armistice but did eventually join the allies to support abdication.
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