The "Alexanderzug" (Wars of Alexander the Great) The "Alexanderzug" (Wars of Alexander the Great)

The "Alexanderzug" (Wars of Alexander the Great) was created for a hall of the Quirinal Palace in preparation for a prospective visit by Napoleon I (1769–1821). However, this visit never took place and Napoleon compensated the artist by commissioning him to create the frieze in marble for Sainte Marie-Madeleine in Paris. The fall of Napoleon prevented the marble frieze from being collected, so Count Giovanni Battista Sommariva (1762–1826) moved it to his own Villa Carlotta on Lake Como around 1826. The original plaster model, created in 1811–1812 for Napoleon's visit to Rome, remained in the Sala della Marchesa in the Quirinal Palace. Many plaster casts of the original model came onto the market and even reached areas of Hamburg, such as the house of the Abendroth family.