Vivant Denon and the Expedition to Egypt Yoshihiko SUGIMOTO Baron Dominique-Vivant de Non (1747-1825), called Vivant Denon, was one of the key figures of the art world during the Napoleonic era: painter, man-of-letters and director general of museums, including the Napoleon Museum (today the Louvre Museum). He was also an author of an account of travels to Egypt: Travels in Upper and Lower Egypt, during the Campaigns of General Bonaparte. This book was published in 1802 and forty editions were issued during the 19th Century. We found the newest one in 1990. Denon joined Napoleon Bonaparte on his Egyptian campaign(1798-99), accompanying the group of scholars who sought comprehensive information about modern Egyptian society in order to govern and colonize it effectively. Denon's Travels in Upper and Lower Egypt is mainly characterized by its colonialistic discourse. It praised Bonaparte as military hero, and also as civilizing hero. It asserted that the current masters of Egypt, the Mamelukes, had forced the nation into a state of barbarism and ignorant superstition, and that French conquest would bring technology and efficient government, namely, civilization to Egypt. Althought faint, Denon's works also comprised anti-colonialistic attitude, in which he was even freed from discriminative feelings against the Orientals. This attitude was ignored by all of the readers in the times of colonialism, but with the coming of the epoch of decolonization, the French have discovered it.