Monday, June 24, 2013

Consecration of the Emperor Napoleon I and Coronation of the Empress Josephine (1807)

After three weeks in 1806, it's on to 1807, and one of Jacques-Louis David's most famous paintings:

Consecration of the Emperor Napoleon I and Coronation of the 
Empress Josephine in the Cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris on 2 Dec 1804 

 Commissioned by Napoleon himself in 1804, the finished painting is a huge canvas: 10 meters wide, 6 meters tall. It must have been one of David's most demanding works. Besides the scale, there is the vast detail. The central figure is, of course, Napoleon, holding a crown. Here is a key to some of the key personalities in the photo (thanks to Wikipedia).

  1. Napoleon
  2. Josephine
  3. Napoleon's mother
  4. Louis Bonaparte, brother of Napoleon and husband of Hortense de Beauharnais, daughter of Josephine by a previous marriage
  5. Joseph Bonaparte, another of Napoleon's brothers. He was not actually present at the event.
  6. Napoleon Charles Bonaparte, son of Louis Bonaparte and Hortense de Beauharnais
  7. Napoleon's sisters
  8. Charles-Francois Lebrun
  9. Jean Jacques Régis de Cambacérès 
  10. Louis-Alexandre Berthier 
  11. Talleyrand
  12. Joachim Murat, marshal of empire, became King of Naples in 1808, married Napoleon's sister Caroline
  13. Pope Pius VII
  14. The painter, Jacques-Louis David, painted himself into the stands

Here is the central part of the painting in more detail.


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