‘Political Chemist and German Retorts or Dissolving the Rhenish Confederacy’, 1813

Description

Mounted hand coloured etching, entitled ‘POLITICAL CHEMIST AND GERMAN RETORTS or DISSOLVING THE RHENISH CONFEDERACY.’, designed and etched by Thomas Rowlandson, and published by Rudolph Ackermann in 1813.

A tiny distraught Napoleon is partly immersed in a glass alembic over a “GERMAN STOVE”, by personifications of the allied nations opposing him. Napoleon cries out “Oh Spare me till the King of Rome is ripe for mischief yet to come”.

The allied nations are celebrating French setbacks at the hands of the allies. A Prussian general puts the lid on the alembic and Bernadotte fills it with “SULPHAT OF SWEDISH IRON”, John Bull (a national personification of Great Britain in general and England in particular) stokes the fire with coal, a Dutchman works the bellows kneeling beside a pot of “GALL”.

A Spaniard pounds a mortar marked “SARAGOSSA”. In the background the Pope waves flasks of “FULMINATING POWDER” and “VIAL OF WRATH”.