The Ashes of Themistocles in Attic Soil

Giovan Battista Sommariva had spent years serving Napoleon in the government of the Cisalpine Republic in Milan, and had been passed over for its vice-presidency. Afterwards he spent his money on art, and in 1806 he asked Giuseppe Bossi for this subject.

Themistocles won Athens the sea battle at Salamis and was driven out of the city by his own side, dying in exile in Persian territory. The story that came down said he asked to have his ashes carried home in secret and buried in Attic soil. Bossi paints the burial: a pit dug in open country, a man down inside it taking the urn, and a crowd of Athenians packed along the edge, soldiers and women and children among them.

The panel is only 60 centimetres high and more than a metre wide, a horizontal strip made for a private room, and Bossi worked the same composition up separately as a cartoon nearly six times the size.