Napoleon as Philoctetes: Military Masculinity, Sacrifice and the Image of the Wound

This article focuses on images of the wounded Napoleon in order to draw some broader conclusions about the sacrificial underpinnings of the French empire. The article considers how graphic representations of the wounded Napoleon Bonaparte helped to negotiate the complex relations between acknowledgements of corporeal vulnerability, ideas of military masculinity and assertions of national unanimity. Particular attention is paid to Pierre Gautherot's painting Napoleon blesse au pied devant Ratisbonne (1810) and to an anonymous graphic satire, Nicolas Philoctete dans l'isle d'Elbe (1814-15).