Year 1796 Artist Antoine-Jean Gros | Medium Oil on canvas Created 1796 | |
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Dimensions 130 cm × 94 cm (51 in × 37 in) Location Palace of Versailles, Versailles Similar Antoine-Jean Gros artwork, Other artwork | ||
Bonaparte at the pont d arcole
Bonaparte at the Pont d’Arcole (French: Bonaparte au Pont d’Arcole) is a 1796 painting by Antoine-Jean Gros, showing an episode during the Battle of Arcole in November 1796, with General Napoleon Bonaparte leading his troops to storm the bridge.
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Description
The painting presents a three-quarter-length image of Bonaparte, holding the flagstaff of the armée d'Italie in his left hand and his sword in his right - on its blade is the inscription Bonaparte, Armée d'Italie. He is dressed in the dark blue trousers and tunic of a general of the Republic, with a gold-embroidered red collar. Beneath them he wears a white shirt and a black neckscarf. He also wears a gold-fringed tricolor cummerbund and a square-buckled belt bearing his empty scabbard. The background suggests the smoke of battle, with a few houses in the distance on the left. The land bordering the river is painted in dark tones, with a smoking cannonball still visible.
History
Painted in Naples in 1796, the painting passed through the collections of Napoleon himself and of Napoleon III before being sequestered in 1870. It was then reacquired by Napoleon III's wife Eugénie de Montijo in 1871, who eight years later gave it to the Louvre (now inventory number RF271). It passed to the château de Compiègne in 1901, then finally the château de Versailles in 1938, (n° d'inventaire MV 6314).
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