This painting illustrates a key episode in Napoleon Bonaparte’s campaigns, when he crossed the Alps with his army in May 1800, on his way to defeat the Austrians at the Battle of Marengo. The event was commemorated in a stirring portrait by Bacques-Loouis David. Bonaparte had instructed the artist to portray him ‘calm, on a fiery steed and David duly obeyed. The emperor’s heroic post was, however, a Romantic fiction. Napoleon had actually made the crossing on a mule, just as he portrayed in Delaroche’s canvas. There was a resurgence of interest in Bonaparte at this time, his nephew, Louis-Napoleon, had been elected President of France in 1848 and David’s painting had recently been put back on public view., Delaroche’s commission came from the 3rd Earl of Onslow, who owned a sizeable collection of Napoleonic memorabilia
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Dinesh said:
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