François Pascal Simon GÉRARD, dit le Baron Gérard... Lot n° 4

Emperor Napoleon I in coronation costume. Oil on canvas. H. 58 x L. 42 cm. In a later gilded wood frame. The Emperor's official portrait The original of this image, commissioned by Napoleon for the Hôtel du Ministère des Relations extérieures in 1805 and delivered the following year, has not yet been identified. Several French institutions now hold versions of this work by Baron Gérard. A pupil of David's since 1786, François Gérard gained notoriety in 1798 with his work Psyché et l'Amour, becoming the painter of the Château de Malmaison and the court's portraitist. In 1804, the day after his coronation at Notre-Dame, Napoleon wished to promote his new image as emperor: he turned to the greatest artists of the time and finally chose Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Robert Lefèvre and François Gérard. Three sensibilities, three styles and three different compositions. Ingres depicts Napoleon seated on his throne, from the front, in stark contrast to the tradition of the Bourbons. Napoleon appears as a sacred man, a kind of deity, which the Emperor disliked for an official portrait. Robert Lefèvre, on the other hand, presents an Emperor who is too human and not worthy enough of the imperial role. It was Gérard who succeeded in creating the perfect balance between man and emperor. Napoleon is shown standing, full-length, with his body in three-quarter view, fully in line with the aesthetic codes established by the monarchy, and thus indicating continuity of power. This image became the official representation of Napoleon in coronation regalia, and was reproduced in a variety of formats and materials, as illustrated by the tapestry produced by Manufacture des Gobelins, a version of which is now in the Metropolitan Museum, or the engraving by Auguste Boucher Desnoyers. The painter of kings and the king of painters Born and raised in Rome, François Gérard grew up in an environment close to the nobility, as his father was steward to Cardinal François-Joachim de Pierre de Bernis. Back in France, he trained at the Pension du Roi, an establishment for talented young artists. He was noticed and became a pupil of the sculptor Augustin Pajou, before becoming a pupil of David at the age of 16. Thanks to his master's protection, he was able to give free rein to his talent and became one of the leading painters of the First Empire and Restoration periods. Nicknamed "the painter of kings, the king of painters", he painted portraits of all the sovereign families of the European courts, and entertained the great artists and intellectuals of the day in his Paris salon. He became a baron in 1819. He died at the age of 67, having become a history painter and master portraitist of neoclassicism. In the 19th century, eighty-seven full-length portraits are attributed to him, as well as over two hundred full-length and bust portraits in various sizes and formats. A studio version Our relatively modest work is based on one of the versions created by Gérard with a yellow background and green carpet, like the one in the Château de Fontainebleau (ill. 2). It is part of a series of smaller versions produced by Gérard and his studio, such as the portrait of Empress Marie-Louise (ill. 4) and the portrait of Countess Katarzyna Joanna Gabrielle Starzenska (ill. 5). An X-ray (ill. 1) carried out on our portrait revealed the fineness of a drawing underlying the painting, testifying to the quality of execution in Gérard's workshop. Illustrations - ill. 1 : X-ray of our painting. - ill. 2 : Workshop of François Pascal Simon GÉRARD, Napoléon Ier en costume de sacre, 1805, 240 x 155 cm, Musée de Fontainebleau, inv. N 16 ; PN 1384. - ill. 3 François Pascal Simon GÉRARD, Napoleon I in coronation costume, c. 1815, 32 x 24.2 cm, Château de Versailles, inv. MV 4866. - ill. 4 : Workshop of François Pascal Simon GÉRARD, Empress Marie-Louise, c. 1815, 65 x 55 cm, private collection. - ill. 5: François Pascal Simon GÉRARD, Portrait of Countess Katarzyna Joanna Gabrielle Starzenska, 1803-1804, 71.5 x 43.3 cm, Royal Palace of Warsaw, inv. ZKW/5870/ab.