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BROWSERS/FOLIO STANDS
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JUSTIN F SKREBOWSKI
Units L3 & L4 Basement, Admiral
Vernon Arcade 141-149 Portobello Road London, W11 2DY, UK.
Telephone: 020 7792 9742 Mobile:
07774 612474
From abroad: +44 20 7792 9742 +44 7774 612474
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MILITARY & NAVAL
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Most recent listings are shown
with three stars ***
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Thomas Gaugain after Anthony Cardon
Gl. Andreossy. The Ambassador from France to His Britannic Majesty
London, A. Cardon 1803
Stipple engraving
330x240mm
£160
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Gl. Andreossy. The Ambassador from France to His Britannic Majesty
A delicately executed, half length portrait, enclosed in an oval, of General Andréossy, Napoleon's Ambassador to Britain during the short lived Peace of Amiens 1802-3. Of Hungarian descent, he looks sternly out, wearing a military coat embroidered with oak leaves and a black cravat. The Peace had been principally used by Napoleon as an opportunity to regroup and reorganise his armies. During that time the British Ambassador to France had been Charles, 1st Earl Whitworth (1752-1825). Napoleon had roughly demanded the British evacuation of Malta as a price of lasting peace, a demand that Whitworth had been firmly instructed by Hawkesbury to refuse. On March 13th 1803 Napoleon had summoned the Ambassador to the Tuileries and subjected to him to a violent tirade after which Whitworth noted 'the extreme impropriety of his conduct and the total want of dignity as well as of decency on the occasion.’ The interview was not, however, a final one Whitworth was received by the First Consul once again on 4th April, when the corps diplomatique were kept waiting for an audience for four hours while Napoleon inspected knapsacks. On 1st May an indisposition prevented Whitworth from attending the reception at the Tuileries, on 12th May he demanded his passports, and on 18th May Britain declared war against France. Whitworth reached London on 20th May, having encountered the French Ambassador, Andréossy, three days earlier at Dover. Throughout the trying scenes with the First Consul, Whitworth's demeanour was generally admitted to have been marked by a dignity and an impassibilité worthy of the best traditions of aristocratic diplomacy.
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Charles Turner after Thomas Phillips
Lieut. General the Honourable Henry Edward Fox, Lieut. Governor of Gibraltar &c. &c. &c.
London, Colnaghi August 17th 1805
Mezzotint
350x250mm
£85
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Lieut. General the Honourable Henry Edward Fox, Lieut. Governor of Gibraltar &c. &c. &c.
A rare and interesting portrait of Henry Edward Fox (1755-1811), son of Henry Fox 1st Lord Holland and his wife Lady Caroline Lennox, and the youngest brother of the statesman Charles James Fox, whom he greatly resembles. After Westminster School he entered the army, serving throughout the American War of Independence, and it is curious to notice that while Charles James Fox was inveighing against the war with the Americans, his brother Henry was constantly employed in it. On his return to England he was received, perhaps for this reason, with the greatest favour by the king, who made him one of his aides-de-camp with the rank of colonel on 12 March 1783. An able soldier, who had distinguished himself in the war in Flanders, in 1804 Fox was appointed lieutenant-governor of Gibraltar, which, as the titular governor, the Duke of Kent, did not reside there, practically meant governor of that important fortress. From this office he was removed, after his brother's accession to office in 1806, to the command of the army in Sicily, and he was also appointed ambassador to the court of Naples, then residing at Palermo. Sir John Moore was his second in command, and as Fox was in very bad health, Moore really undertook the entire management of both military and diplomatic matters. Soon after his return to England Fox was promoted general on 25 July 1808, and made governor of Portsmouth, where he died on 18 July 1811. He left one son, Henry Stephen Fox, diplomatist, and two daughters, the elder married to General Sir Henry Bunbury, bart., and the younger to General Sir William Napier, K.C.B.
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