Le couronnement de l'Empereur et de l'Impératrice by Jacques-Louis David

It's an oil painting which measures 6,29m on 9,79m or more than 60 sqm.

This beautiful scene was painted by Jacques-Louis David between 1805 and 1807. It represents the ceremony of Napoléon and his wife's coronation in December 1804. During the ceremony, Bonaparte took the crown from the Pope's hands and put it on. Then, he crowned his wife Joséphine.

In this painting, we come across two hundred people, who are Napoléon 's supporters. However, we can note that Napoléon ' s mother is present while she did not want to attend the ceremony so Jacques-Louis David wanted to ideaIize it.

This painting is very important in France's History owing to the fact that it should be like a photography. Jacques-Louis David was meticulously truthful when he painted it. Moreover, Napoléon gave a lot of things to France like the Civil Code or the prefectures. He did a lot of wars and extended the territory .For all these reasons he become one of France's symbols. I reckon that without him, France would not be what it is now.

Jacques-Louis David was born in 1748 in Paris. His family belonged to the middle-class. He was related with François Boucher, a famous French painter, who presented him to Vien, another very famous painter. He was admitted at the Academy in 1766. From that time, he started to paint mythological subjects. But he did not like them as he told Cochin in confidence: " Mythology lacks liveliness and does not move." However, it was on this theme that he won the first price of the Academy. In 1775, Vien brought him in Italy. He visited Rome, Naples and Pompeii. He was the revelation ; he discovered ail the beauty of ancient civilisations.

He was at the head of new-classicism.

If you want, you can see this painting in the Louvre Museum, Paris.

LABARRE Delphine