History and description

It depicts the arrival of Louis XVIII, the long-exiled claimant to the throne of France, arriving in Calais, on 24 April 1814, following the downfall of Napoleon. ^{[2] [3]} Louis, the younger brother of the guillotined Louis XVI, had spent the later stages of the Napoleonic Wars in exile in Regency Britain. The First Bourbon Restoration proved to be short-lived as Napoleon escaped from Elba in 1815. It was a companion piece to The Embarkation of Louis XVIII at Dover , which shows the beginning of the voyage.

Bird was a founder of the Bristol School and in 1815 was elected a member of the Royal Academy. He was known for his genre paintings, but his career ended in bankruptcy, and his early death in 1819. ^[4] The painting is in the collection of the Wolverhampton Art Gallery, which purchased it in 1935. ^[5] Another version is on display at Burton Constable Hall, in Yorkshire. ^[6]

See also

• Louis XVIII Raising France from Its Ruins , an 1814 painting by Louis-Philippe Crépin featuring an allegorical depiction of the king's arrival at Calais

References

Bibliography

• Greenacre, Francis. The Bristol School of Artists: Francis Danby and Painting in Bristol, 1810-1840. City Art Gallery, 1973.
• Richardson, Sarah. Edward Bird, 1772-1819. Wolverhampton Art Gallery, 1982.
• Roe, Sonia & Ellis, Andrew. Oil Paintings in Public Ownership in Staffordshire. Public Catalogue Foundation, 2007.
• Wright, Christopher, Gordon, Catherine May & Smith, Mary Peskett. British and Irish Paintings in Public Collections: An Index of British and Irish Oil Paintings by Artists Born Before 1870 in Public and Institutional Collections in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Yale University Press, 2006.