Giovanni Battista Comolli was an Italian sculptor who studied under Giuseppe Franchi at the Brera Academy, Milan, but was strongly influenced by Antonio Canova. During his career, he moved frequently due to changing political regimes, working across Italy, as well as had extended periods in Paris and London.



In the early years of the 19th-century, Comolli found favour with the Napoleonic regime; he famously prepared a plaster model of a monumental sculpture of Napoleon the Peacemaker for the 1801 Salon, but it was never realised in marble as Napoleon withdrew all portraits of himself for the Salon in this year. In 1802, Comolli completed a series of busts of French military commanders including Napoleon, Jourdan, Brune and Massena, for the local atheneum in Turin. Around this time, he was also appointed Professor of Sculpture at the Accademia Albertina.
This bust shows Napoleon in the guise of a Roman Emperor, and might be compared to the bronze-coloured patinated plaster bust that was presented to the Lyon Council and donated to the Cisalpine Republic on 9 January 1801.[1]
[1] U. Da Como, I Comizi naz. in Lione per la costituzione della Repubbl. ital., I-III, Bologna 1934-40, p. 75.