Studio of Jacques-Louis David Studio of Jacques-Louis David

Collection André Fabius, in 1968;

Fabius Frères Collection;

Their sale, Sotheby's, Paris, 27 October 2011, lot 264 (as Studio of Jacques Louis David);

Where acquired by the present owner.

P.-J. Chalençon, Napoléon. La collection, Paris 2019, pp. 62-63 (as Jacques-Louis David and Studio).

Ecole Supérieure de Guerre, Inauguration de la Salle Foch, Ecole Militaire, Paris 1960;

Paris, Musée National de la Légion d'Honneur et des Ordres de Chevalerie, Napoléon et la Légion d'Honneur (Dans le Cadre de la Commémoration du Deuxième Centenaire de la Naissance de l'Empereur), March-June 1968, cat. no. 228.

Founded by the First Consul on 19 May 1802, the institution of the Légion d’Honneur was intended to bring together the most deserving soldiers and civilians in an elite body, forming a new association in the service of the Empire. An appropriate insignia was required and several artists were asked to produce a model.

This important drawing was the design selected by Napoleon. Suspended from a wide moiré riband, the insignia is in the shape of a star with five double rays, their points not ball-tipped, with the unlaureled head of the Emperor in the centre and the inscription ‘Napoléon Emp. des Français’. A wreath of oak and laurel leaves surrounds the star. The drawing was submitted to Napoleon by David himself on 1 May 1804, according to the note written on the mount. This is later, but the date is not disputed. This means that the design was presented eighteen days before the Senate’s decision to offer the throne to Napoleon, though the central part was later modified.

The drawing has been attributed to several artists, including Jean-Baptiste Isabey. It was presented as ‘almost certainly’ a work by David in the 1968 exhibition at the Musée de la Légion d’Honneur, op. cit.: ‘this is a drawing of exceptional importance. It almost certainly identifies David as the author of the design finally chosen by Napoleon’. This attribution is now rejected by specialists in the artist’s work.

As for the insignia itself, it was immediately popular. A first issue took place on 15 July 1804, an event immortalized by the painter Jean-Baptiste Debret in a painting measuring more than 4 x 5 m (Musée National du Château de Versailles).