D'après Jacques-Louis David After Jacques-Louis David

Napoléon, l'Empereur sous la verrière du Grand Palais : La collection Pierre-Jean Chalençon, cat. exh. Grand Palais, Paris 2018, pp. 78-79 (as Jacques-Louis David);

P.-J. Chalençon, Napoléon. La collection, Paris 2019, p. 23 (as French School, 19th Century, after Jacques-Louis David).

This painting is a bust-length copy after a sketched mid-length portrait of Napoleon (Musée du Louvre), the only surviving fragment of a large canvas which David began in 1798. This was never completed, but is known from a drawing (reproduced in the exhibition catalogue for David, Musée du Louvre, Paris; Musée National du Château de Versailles, 26 October 1989–12 February 1990, p. 380). It was meant to show Napoleon full-length, shortly after the Battle of Castiglione, accompanied by an orderly holding his horse. During the single posing session, David painted Napoleon’s head and rapidly sketched out the basic lines of his body. He never went back to the canvas, which was cut down to its present size no later than 1826, before the Vivant-Denon sale on 1 May, where it was listed as no. 199.

In the superb Louvre sketch, Napoleon’s face is idealized, expressing all the energy and authority of the young hero who would force destiny’s hand to become Emperor. David had boundless admiration for Napoleon, comparing him to the great men of antiquity. ‘Here is a man to whom altars would have been erected in ancient times… Bonaparte is my hero!’ (see exh. cat. for David, 1989–1990, p. 378, op. cit.).