The upcoming exhibition "Napoleon on the Nile: Soldiers, Artists, and the
Rediscovery of Egypt" launches the cultural arts partnership between New York
City's Dahesh Museum of Art and Syracuse University. The exhibition will be on
display at SUArt Galleries' main campus galleries located in the Shaffer Art Building
from Jan. 29-March 29. A public reception will take place Thursday, Feb. 5, from 5-7
p.m.
The partnership offers each institution heightened visibility, new audiences and the
potential for dynamic collaborative programming. At the same time, the students,
faculty and diverse communities within Syracuse will be introduced to a new way of
looking at and thinking about art in the context of history, an approach the Dahesh
Museum has pioneered in its 14-year history.
For now, the partnership is projected for two years, but there may be a long-term
relationship in the future. "Especially in these challenging economic times," says
Domenic Iacono, director of SUArt Galleries, "our two institutions will investigate
other ways to collaborate."
Flora Kaplan, the Dahesh Museum's director, agrees: "Our experiment is reaching
out to and engaging new audiences. We see the partnership as fluid and look forward
to working in new ways and on new projects."
"Napoleon on the Nile" illuminates how French military ambitions and the quest for
scientific knowledge (and political control) came to shape the West's enduring image
of Egypt, inspiring generations of painters, photographers, architects and decorative
artists. While Napoleon's military exploits ended poorly, he achieved what was to be
perhaps his greatest legacy: the publication of the multi-volume "Description de
l'Egypte," widely recognized as the single most important European scholarly study
of ancient and modern Egypt and the focus of this exhibition.
Initiated under the patronage of Napoleon and completed in 1829 during the reign of
King Charles X, the "Description" was among the most significant consequences of
the French military's occupation of Egypt. The exhibition is composed of more than
80 large, exquisitely detailed engraved illustrations from the "Description," which
forms the foundational work of modern Egyptology, along with vivid Orientalist
paintings and drawings that were influenced by them, as well as a selection of
campaign letters and documents, which reveal the artistic legacy of Gen. Napoleon
Bonaparte's brief occupation of Egypt, begun in 1798 and ending in 1801.
The astonishing range and precision of the "Description" images was captured by
Napoleon's savants, a small army of scholars whose project was to systematically
explore, describe and document every aspect of the country-its ancient and modern
buildings and monuments, topography, commerce, customs, and flora and fauna.
Supported by Napoleon and protected by his army, this select group of engineers,
scientists, mathematicians, naturalists, and artists served the political mission of the
expedition by providing comprehensive information and skills an occupying force
needed to govern and rebuild effectively. At the same time, they advanced
Napoleon's ideological goals by rediscovering the wonders of Pharaonic Egyptian
civilization, with which Napoleon, in his dual roles of liberator/conqueror, was happy
to be associated.
The exhibition was originally organized by the Dahesh Museum of Art's associate
curator, Lisa Small. It is accompanied by a timeline tracing the major events of the
Egyptian campaign and a richly illustrated exhibition catalogue.
