Image · Public domain via Wikimedia Commons
The Coronation of Napoleon
Jacques-Louis David · 1805–1807
About this masterpiece
David’s vast canvas captures the moment on 2 December 1804 when Napoleon Bonaparte, having just crowned himself Emperor of the French in Notre-Dame de Paris, places a smaller crown on the head of his kneeling wife Joséphine. The composition includes more than 150 portrait figures — dignitaries, clergy, family and Pope Pius VII — each rendered with documentary precision in a richly costumed pageant.
Historical significance
Commissioned as official propaganda, the painting was designed to legitimize the new imperial regime by linking it to Roman and Carolingian tradition. David spent three years on it, observing many of the participants in his studio. Its scale and theatricality made it the defining political image of the First Empire and one of the largest paintings in the Louvre.
