Chambre Ardente De Napoleon from Retour en France by Victor Adam 1840

[BONAPARTE, Napoleon] ADAM, Victor; ARNOUT, Jules. Chambre Ardente de Napoleon, construite a Toulon en Juillet 1840 dans la Fregate la Belle-Poule. Paris, Jeannin, [1840].
 
Large folio lithograph, 510 x 355 mm. Blind-stamped. Dessinee d'apres nature par Arnout; l'entourage par V. Adam. Printed by Lemercier, Bernard et Cie. Light scattered foxing chiefly to the margins; some minor handling wear. Very good.
 
One of the more visually striking plates from Adam's suite documenting the exhumation, return, and state funeral of Napoleon in 1840. The plate forms part of Victor Adam's Retour en France des Depouilles Mortelles de Napoleon, a suite of twenty lithographs documenting the Retour des Cendres. The scene depicts the elaborate chapelle ardente or lying-in-state chamber specially constructed aboard the frigate Belle-Poule for the transport of Napoleon's remains from St Helena to France. The candlelit funerary interior, dominated by imperial eagles and Napoleonic emblems, reflects the carefully orchestrated political symbolism surrounding the repatriation of the emperor's body under Louis-Philippe. This plate is from the original first edition of the complete series of twenty large-format lithographs issued in Paris in 1840.