The Distribution of the Eagle Standards by Jacques Louis David

This is Jacques-Louis David's 'The Distribution of the Eagle Standards' (1810), an enormous painting hanging in the Château de Versailles. It depicts a real event that occurred just three days after Napoleon crowned himself Emperor in December 1804: a mass loyalty oath on the Champ de Mars, where new imperial eagle standards were handed to the regiments.

Look first at the elevated platform. Napoleon, bathed in light and wearing the white and gold imperial costume, stands above a sea of soldiers. Then shift your eye to the right side of the painting, where dozens of arms are thrust upwards in a synchronized Roman salute. David repeats the gesture so many times it stops being individual and becomes a visual rhythm of collective obedience.

The ceremony itself was a calculated piece of political theater, explicitly designed to revive the martial traditions of the Roman legions. It cost the state 1.5 million francs to stage in front of an estimated 10,000 attendees. David was paid 100,000 francs for the commission, and he worked on it for nearly six years before it finally appeared at the Salon of 1810.

A huge amount of money changed hands to manufacture this moment of unity on canvas. The painting was completed at a time when Napoleon's empire was beginning to show cracks, which makes the perfect, choreographed loyalty on display here feel less like a record and more like a very expensive argument.