Silver Lustre Jug Commemorating Napoleons Flight From Moscow c1813

Description

Heading : Staffordshire Silver Lustre Jug Commemorating Napoleons Flight From Moscow
Date :  Almost certainly 1813
Period : Regency
Marks : None
Origin : Staffordshire
Colour : Creamware with silver bands. Polychrome depiction of Napoleon on a horse, arms aloft in panic. Caption ‘Boneys Return from Russia to Paris’
Condition : A small loss to the silvering at tip of the spout
Restoration : None
Dimensions : spout to handle diameter 13.5cm x 11.8cm height
Weight : 243g

Reference : The arrival of the Grand Armee in Moscow was the pinnacle of Boneparte’s military achievements. The Russians adopted a scorched earth policy and those parts of the city that were not on fire were looted by it’s own residents. This presented napoleon with a resource issue. Hiw lines of communication were over extended, the Cosacks were interrupting the supply chain and the larders of Moscow were empty. He delatyed his retreat until winter and his army was harried all the way by starvation and failing equipment.

This ‘failure’ was the stimulus for a surfeit of satire that would keep the cartoonists busy for a year. Only one in five of those who entered Russia returned and with depleted resources this lead to the fateful campaigns of 1813-14 his abdication and exile in Elba. But this was not be his last hurrah.