Artwork
Coronation of Emperor Napoleon I and Coronation of the Empress Josephine
Coronation of Emperor Napoleon I and Coronation of the Empress Josephine is an oil painting by the Neoclassicist artist Jacques-Louis David. It dates from 1808 and is held in the collection of the Museum of the History of France.
About this work
Subject & Meaning
The painting depicts the coronation of Napoleon I and the subsequent crowning of Empress Josephine within Notre-Dame de Paris on 2 December 1804.
The painting depicts the coronation of Napoleon I and the subsequent crowning of Empress Josephine within Notre-Dame de Paris on 2 December 1804. Rather than showing Napoleon receiving the crown from Pope Pius VII, the composition captures the Emperor placing the diadem upon Josephine's head, a deliberate iconographic choice symbolizing that his authority derived from his own will and the state rather than the Church or divine right. The scene is populated by a vast assembly of clergy, nobility, and family members, including Napoleon's mother and siblings, arranged to project imperial legitimacy and dynastic stability.
By freezing this ritual act, the work functions as political propaganda, visually codifying the transition from Republic to Empire and asserting the supremacy of the new imperial order.
Technique & Style
The Coronation of Emperor Napoleon I and Coronation of the Empress Josephine is an oil painting on canvas measuring approximately 610 cm high by 931 cm wide. Jacques-Louis David painted the principal figures, while his assistant Georges Rouget executed much of the background and draperies. The work belongs to the history-painting genre, presenting a monumental, multi-figure composition that records the Napoleonic coronation with precise detail and the clear, orderly arrangement typical of official state art of the period.
History & Provenance
The work was conceived as a history painting recording the coronation ceremony of 2 December 1804 at Notre-Dame de Paris. This version, executed by Jacques-Louis David from 1808 with the collaboration of Georges Rouget, is the artist's own replica of the original now in the Louvre. It is held at the Palace of Versailles, within the collections of the National Museums of the Chateaux of Versailles and Trianon, where it forms part of the Museum of the History of France.
Its inventory number is MV 7156, as recorded in the Joconde database. The available sources do not provide a detailed chronology of past exhibitions or loans for this canvas.
Context
The coronation scene exemplifies Jacques-Louis David's mastery of the history-painting genre and his integration of contemporary political symbolism. Contemporary viewers admired its heroic composition and neoclassical clarity, while modern scholarship interprets the work as a deliberate piece of imperial propaganda that consolidates the narrative of the Napoleonic regime. Within David's career it reflects his transition from revolutionary artist to official chronicler of the Empire.
Its display at the Palace of Versailles underscores its function as a visual endorsement of imperial authority and its place in the development of French academic history painting.
Overview
Jacques Louis David completed "Coronation of Emperor Napoleon I and Coronation of the Empress Josephine," a large oil painting, in 1808. This historical work captures the solemn ceremony of Napoleon Bonaparte's self-coronation and the subsequent crowning of his wife, Josephine. It is currently housed at the Palace of Versailles, serving as a significant visual record of a pivotal moment in French history.
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Artist & collection
Artist
Jacques-Louis David was born in Paris on 30 August 1748 into a bourgeois family; his father died in a duel when the boy was nine, and a maternal uncle guided his education.
First distribution of the decorations of the Legion of Honor, made by Bonaparte, in the church of the imperial hotel of Invalides, July 14, 1804
Inauguration du monument à la mémoire de Louis XVI par Charles X, place de la Concorde, 3 mai 1826
Marriage of Napoleon I and Marie Louise, 2 April 1810
Wedding of Prince Jérôme Bonaparte and Princess Frédérique-Catherine of Wurtemberg, August 22, 1807
The Duke of Bordeaux presented to the people and the army by the Duchess of Berry in the presence of the king, surrounded by the royal family and the main figures of the State
Pope Pius VII in the Sistine Chapel