Edouard Detaille

Anonymous sale, Sotheby's, London, 19 November 2002, lot 201;

Sale Les Collections Aristophil, Claude Aguttes, Neuilly-sur-Seine, 20 December 2017, lot 98;

Where acquired by the present owner.

Napoléon, l'Empereur sous la verrière du Grand Palais : La collection Pierre-Jean Chalençon, cat. exh. Grand Palais, Paris, 2018, pp. 62-63 and 80;

P.-J. Chalençon, Napoléon. La collection, Paris 2019, pp. 18-19 and 28.

This imposing canvas portrays Napoleon standing, in close-up, gazing into the distance. The expression on his youthful face clearly shows his ambition and determination. He is separated from his army by a massive rock. The very vertical life-size format emphasizes the exceptional personality of the young general whose genius would take him to great heights. His facial features are those traditionally associated with Napoleon as a young man: clean-shaven, pale and thin, with long, smooth hair, a determined mouth and piercing eyes.

There is an undated study of the same subject (see F. Robichon, Edouard Detaille, un siècle de gloire militaire, Paris 2007, pp. 90-91). Was this a preparatory work for the present painting, to which it is very close? Or for an earlier version, painted in 1899, as the artist noted on 31 December: ‘Commencé Bonaparte en Italie’. There exists no record of the composition of this last painting, whose location appears to be unknown. 

François Robichon associates the present canvas with two others, which the painter mentioned in his notebook on 2 April 1907. One, intended for the Lycée Condorcet in Paris, is known from an archive photograph. It displays some significant differences, with Napoleon standing in front of a wood fire.

Detaille followed in the footsteps of those painters who illustrated the Napoleonic legend throughout the nineteenth century and into the beginning of the twentieth – from David, Gros, Girodet, Horace Vernet and many others to his master Ernest Meissonier, who was famous for his numerous works illustrating Napoleon’s deeds. Detaille began to take an interest in this theme in the 1860s, but it was mostly from 1880 to 1890 that his Napoleonic subjects proliferated, especially battle scenes and cavalry charges, which he painted with great attention to detail and historical truth, inspired by Meissonier. He used uniforms and accessories of the period and searched through archives to ensure the perfect accuracy of his paintings.

The first Italian Campaign (1796–1797) saw the French army, led by Napoleon, go from victory to victory: Castiglione, Mondovi, Lodi, Arcole, Rivoli, to mention only the most famous. The campaign would reveal the young general’s superiority and lay the foundations for his image as a providential and invincible man. The future Emperor’s extraordinary adventure was just beginning…