Paintings

In the Salon of 1835, a huge painting caused a sensation. Based on recent history, the dramatic scene was particularly emotional for the viewing public. In the twilight, two dying soldiers and a dead horse lying in the snow symbolise the horror of the retreat from Russia. Around them are scattered the last remnants of […]

At the very end of the 18th century, Gérard put to one side history painting and executed some remarkably beautiful portraits. Indeed, he became famous through his portraiture, and it was to this that he owed his appointment as official portrait painter to Napoleon, the imperial family and the great dignitaries of the Empire. After […]

Born in the English colony of Pennsylvania, Benjamin West set up in London in 1763 after having spent a time in Italy, where he had discovered nascent Neo-classicism. A founding member of the Royal Academy and its president for thirty years, West was George III’s official artist and protégé, not to mention covered with honours. […]

More than ten years after the revolt in Cairo, Girodet was commissioned by Vivant Denon to paint this bloody episode from the Egyptian Campaign – it was exhibited at the Salon of 1810. The work is by no means a historical account, but rather a free impression based on the contemporary fashion for all things […]

Eugène Boudin was known as “the beaches and skies painter” and his name is inseparably linked to the seaside scenes which made his name. Son of a Honfleur seaman, Eugène dedicated himself entirely to observing a new fashion, beach tourism on the Normandy coast. The French side of the channel coastline, initially frequented in the […]

1867. More than 7 million visitors came to see the Exposition universelle, and for the occasion Paris glittered like a diamond tiara. The sovereigns and elite of the whole world flocked to the festivities organised by the imperial regime. The celebrations were incessant. The journalist Henri Rochefort noted with irony that: «Paris, which people have […]

Three years after having won the Prix de Rome, Guérin (a pupil of Jean-Baptiste Regnault’s, who himself was David’s great rival) presented a painting at the Salon of 1799 which was to bring him enormous fame and appreciation. Not only was this work by Guérin the debutante much liked by the public it was also […]

The French defeats in the war of 1870, the debacle for the troops after the capitulation at Sedan and the siege of Paris were the subject of many works exhibited at the Salon from 1872 on. The “annus terribilis” of 1870 left France deeply traumatised, and the painters were to play on the theme of this […]

This painting was an official commission by the Ministère d’Etat in commemoration of the reception of the ambassadors of the king of Siam, Rama IV, by Napoleon III and the Empress Eugénie in the great Salle de Bal in the Château de Fontainebleau, 27 June, 1861. The event not only marked the re-establishment of diplomatic […]

The occupation of Spain by Napoleon's troops beginning in 1808 and the patriotic reaction which ensued inspired Goya to one of his most dramatically forceful works. His very famous paintings Dos de Mayo and Tres de Mayo, which testify to the violent uprisings which took place in Madrid on 2 May 1808 and the terrible repression on […]