Emperor Napoleon I (1769-1821)

This portrait of Napoleon is believed to be the model for a larger composition, now lost. After his coronation in the Cathedral of Notre Dame on December 2, 1804, portraits like this one of the emperor in his ceremonial garb were commissioned and disseminated throughout Europe. Their main purpose was to establish an iconography of the emperor’s reign, which relied on royal conventions of sovereignty stretching back to Charlemagne. These customs were known intimately to David and his students, as David had attended the coronation and composed a large-scale painting of the event over a three-year period. Though this is a study, details that are typical of David’s portraits abound here; they include the reflections in the golden orb in the emperor’s left hand and the exquisite depictions of the contrasting textures of fur, velvet, and brocade in his robe.