Gillray, James. Apotheosis of the Corsican Phoenix. Original antique engraving by James Gillray. From the Bohn edition of 1851, using Gillray’s original copper plates. With later hand colouring.

Original engraving by James Gillray, first published in 1808. This impression made in 1851 as part of the Bohn Edition.

Apotheosis of the Corsican-Phoenix, satirizes Napoleon Bonaparte’s self-destructive ambition and predicts the downfall of his empire in the wake of Spanish resistance. Instead of a glorious rebirth, the image portrays a terrified Napoleon consumed by flames of his own making.

However, the caricature subverts the traditional meaning of apotheosis (elevation to divine status) and the phoenix’s symbolism (rebirth from ashes).

The phoenix’s nest is a terrestrial globe resting on a pile of bayoneted muskets, set on a pinnacle labeled “Pyrenean Mountains.” The globe is shown with flames consuming several countries, including Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Germany.

Napoleon’s head is shown in profile, looking terrified as his blazing crown flies off. The powerful phoenix of legend has been replaced by a creature with predatory, horrified claws, from which his orb and scepter are falling.

From the thick smoke above the flames, a dove emerges, holding an olive branch inscribed with “Peace on Earth.” This imagery ironically portrays Napoleon’s destruction as the source of a future peace.

The caricature was published on August 2, 1808, a crucial time in the Napoleonic Wars, and was created after the Spanish uprising against Napoleon’s forces, which forced the emperor to change his military plans. Gillray interpreted this resistance as the spark that would consume Napoleon’s entire empire, symbolically depicting it as the fire in the “Pyrenean Mountains”.

The satirical print suggests that Napoleon’s own aggressive, far-reaching ambition—the “wafting of his own Wings”—would lead to his self-immolation. The irony of the title Apotheosis highlights Napoleon’s downfall rather than his supposed elevation.

A message of hope: The image implies that from the destruction of Napoleon’s empire will emerge a new era of peace, symbolized by the dove. For Gillray’s British audience, the message was one of vindication and a prophetic vision of Napoleon’s inevitable defeat.

Gillray was one of five children, and the only one to survive to maturity. In 1770 he was apprenticed to Harry Ashby, a London writing in engraver, and five years later W. Humphrey published a few of Gillray’s illustrations including satirical works. By the time Gillray commenced his career satire was old, but personal caricature was in its infancy. Other exponents in this form of art were soon overshadowed by Gillray’s superior craftsmanship. His figures were full of vitality, titillating and reflective of some political crisis or private scandal. As his popularity increased so did demand by the public to see more of his work. In the rapidly changing politics of the late18th century he would produce a plate in twenty-four hours. Although sometimes overlooked his speech bubbles were elaborate and Gillray would spend considerable time composing and redrafting the text.

Between 1791 to 1807 his career continued successfully in association with William and Hannah Humphrey. There after Gillray’s health began to suffer. He eventually slipped into madness and died shortly before the Battle of Waterloo on June 1st 1815. Hannah, who had a close relationship with him nursed Gillray through out his final years and following his death the copper plates then formed part of Hannah’s estate when she died in 1818. The executor’s of Hannah’s estate sold Gillray’s painstakingly worked plates for there second hand copper weight. Hearing of this, the then publisher, Bohn who had previously expressed an interest in buying the plates set about purchasing them from a variety of different sources. Eventually acquiring over 500. In 1851 Bohn republished the engravings in a large folio volume, “The Works of James Gillray”.