Nelson and Napoleon never met, but a new exhibition shows how these small men once towered over Europe

Nelson and Napoleon
National Maritime Museum, London SE10; until 13 November

Although Nelson and Napoleon never met, the National Maritime Museum has had fun composing this exhibition to mark the bicentenary of Trafalgar.

The exhibition places the men in their historical context, but it is the personal rather than the political which stands out. There are portraits of Josephine, Napoleon’s wife; the rings Nelson exchanged with his mistress, Emma Hamilton, before Trafalgar. And then there are the great men. In a cabinet sit their respective bicorn hats, looking rather forlorn.

While the objects on show, from the score of Beethoven’s Eroica, with the dedication to Bonaparte angrily erased, to the Egyptian-style trinkets created after Napoleon’s excursions down the Nile are fascinating, the highlights are two paintings. The first, The Death of Nelson by Arthur William Devis, shows Nelson, Christ-like, dying on board the Victory; the other, Napoleon as First Consul by Ingres, is a masterly depiction of the Emperor as dandy and supreme leader.

What emerge are the personalities of these two diminutive men who once towered over the fortunes of Europe.