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Painting of crowned man in elaborate robes holding scepter

A light-skinned man stands in the foreground wearing a crimson-and-gold robe and a white fur collar. A crown of golden laurel leaves circles his head. The man looks down and toward the left. In his white-gloved hands he holds a scepter topped with a golden bird and a golden orb with a cross on top. Behind the man to the left is a red velvet chair with ornate golden clawed feet. A table behind the man to the left holds a golden crown with a cross at the top and another scepter with a white hand on the end.

Gallery Text

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.

Identification and Creation

Object Number
1943.228
People
Jacques-Louis David, French (Paris 1748 - 1825 Brussels)
Previously attributed to Jacques-Louis David, French (Paris 1748 - 1825 Brussels)
Previously attributed to (?) Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, French (Montauban 1780 - 1867 Paris)
Title
Emperor Napoleon I (1769-1821)
Other Titles
Original Language Title: Napoléon Ier en Habits Impériaux
Alternate Title: Portrait of Napoleon I
Classification
Paintings
Work Type
painting
Date
c. 1807
Culture
French
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/230057

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Oil on panel
Dimensions
88.3 x 59.4 cm (34 3/4 x 23 3/8 in.)
framed: 106.7 x 77.5 x 7.6 cm (42 x 30 1/2 x 3 in.)
Inscriptions and Marks
  • Signed: l.r., in oil: L. DAVID. 1807

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History
Sold [through David sale, A. N. Pérignon, Paris, April 17, 1826, and following days, no. 7]; to (Louis-Joseph Auguste?) Coutan, 1826, sold [through his sale, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, March 9, 1829, no. 20]. Ambroise Firmin Didot, by 1857. Moreau Wolsey, sold [through his sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, March 23-24, 1869, no 34]; to Richard Wallace, Paris and London, by descent; to Lady Julia Amélie Castelnau Wallace, 1890, bequest; to Sir John Murray Scott, 1897, bequest; to Josephine Victoria Sackville-West, Lady Sackville of Knowle, 1912, sold; [to Jacques Seligmann et Cie, Paris, 1913], sold; to Grenville L. Winthrop, New York, NY, May 8, 1925, bequest; to Fogg Art Museum, 1943.

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Bequest of Grenville L. Winthrop
Accession Year
1943
Object Number
1943.228
Division
European and American Art
Contact
am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu
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Publication History

  • Antoine Thomé, Vie de David, Premier Peintre de Napoleon, Baudouin Frères (Brussels, Belgium, 1826), pp. 185, 236-237
  • Pierre Alexandre Coupin, Essai sur J. L. David, peintre d'histoire, ancien membre de l'Institut, officier de la Legion-d'honneur, J. Renouard (Paris, France, 1827), p. 35
  • J. L. Jules David, Le Peintre Louis David: Souvenirs et documents inedits (Paris, France, 1880), p. 439; p. 644
  • Chinese Sculpture, Bronzes, Jades, Paintings and Drawings, Egyptian and Persian sculpture, Pre-Columbian art; selected from the collection of Grenville Lindall Winthrop, exh. cat., Fogg Art Museum (Cambridge, MA, 1943), p. 3
  • Germain Seligman, Merchants of Art, exh. cat., Appleton-Century-Crofts (New York, NY, 1961), p. 149; repr. pl. 45A
  • Daniel Wildenstein and Guy Wildenstein, Documents Complémentaires au Catalogue de l'oeuvre de Louis David, Fondation Wildenstein (Paris, France, 1973), pp. 244 (no. 7 under doc. 2002), 249, 250? (possibly no. 6 under doc. 2087)
  • Philippe Bordes and Alain Pougetoux, "Les Portraits de Napoléon en habits imperiaux par Jacques-Louis David", Gazette des Beaux-Arts (July 1983 - Aug 1983), pps. 21-34; repr. fig. 8, p. 25; n. 15, 29
  • Antoine Schnapper and Arlette Sérullaz, ed., Jacques-Louis David, 1748-1825, exh. cat., Editions de la Réunion des Musées Nationaux (Paris, France, 1989), repr. in b/w fig. 118, p. 433; pp. 436, 616 (in chronology)
  • Alain Pougetoux, "David et ses Portraits de Napoléon", Société des Amis de Malmaison Bulletin (1990), pp. 12-13
  • Edgar Peters Bowron, European Paintings Before 1900 in the Fogg Art Museum: A Summary Catalogue including Paintings in the Busch-Reisinger Museum, Harvard University Art Museums (Cambridge, MA, 1990), p.104, repr. as no. 261
  • Dr. Christina Böttcher, Europa zur Zeit Napoleons, Zeitlupe 2, ed. Dr. Hans-Jürgen Pandel, Schroedel Verlag (Hannover, Germany, 2002), p. 54, repr. in color as fig. 54.1
  • Stephan Wolohojian, ed., A Private Passion: 19th-Century Paintings and Drawings from the Grenville L. Winthrop Collection, Harvard University, exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Yale University Press (U.S.) (New York, 2003), no. 22, pp. 92-93, repr. in color
  • Stephan Wolohojian, Ingres, Burne-Jones, Whistler, Renoir... La Collection Grenville L. Winthrop, exh. cat., Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon and Réunion des Musées Nationaux (Paris, France, 2003), no. 22, pp. 100-101, repr. in color
  • Philippe Bordes, Jacques-Louis David: Empire to Exile, exh. cat., Yale University Press (New Haven, CT and London, 2005), pp. 62-63, repr. in color as fig. 15
  • Susan L. Siegfried and Todd Porterfield, Staging Empire: Napoleon, Ingres, and David, Pennsylvania State University Press (University Park, PA, 2006), p. 85, repr. p. 84 as fig. 3.14
  • Susan L. Siegfried, Ingres: Painting Reimagined, Yale University Press (U.S.) (New Haven, 2009), pp. 282-284, repr. in b/w p. 284 as fig. 169
  • Sebastian Smee, "Frame by Frame: Under History's Spell", The Boston Globe (March 1, 2011), section G, p. 3, repr.
  • Colleen Walsh, "Competing visions" (The Harvard Gazette, November 19, 2021), https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2021/11/as-the-game-approaches-ivy-league-curators-discuss-artistic-rivalries/, accessed November 19, 2021

Exhibition History

  • Chinese sculpture, bronzes, jades, paintings and drawings, Egyptian and Persian sculpture, Pre-Columbian art : selected from the collection of Grenville Lindall Winthrop, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, 10/01/1943 - 02/28/1944
  • France and the Portrait, 1799-1870, Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge, 12/03/1994 - 01/29/2002
  • A Private Passion: 19th-Century Paintings and Drawings from the Grenville L. Winthrop Collection, Harvard University, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon, Lyon, 03/15/2003 - 05/26/2003; National Gallery, London, 06/25/2003 - 09/14/2003; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 10/23/2003 - 01/25/2004
  • For Students of Art and Lovers of Beauty: Highlights from the Collection of Grenville L. Winthrop, Harvard University Art Museums, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, 04/16/2004
  • 32Q: 2200 19th Century, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 11/16/2014 - 11/14/2022

Subjects and Contexts

  • Google Art Project

Related Works

Verification Level

This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of European and American Art at am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu