Why are there five different pictures of "Napoleon Crossing the Alps" and which is your favorite? (Also hi I missed you and Napoleon <3)
Napoleon Crossing the Alps was commissioned by King Charles IV of Spain to hang in a gallery of military heros. Napoleon didn’t help much with the portrait, refusing to sit for it, but did lend his uniform he wore at the Battle of Marengo and said that he should be portrayed calmly sitting on a “firey” horse. Napoleon didn’t really believe one had to look like their portraits, as long as they caught the subjects genius. David therefore used his son as a model and had him sit astride a ladder.
The painting proved to be so popular and well liked that Napoleon commissioned three more. A fifth one was painted and stayed in David’s studio. One hung in Madrid, one in Milan, and two in Paris. One for the Palace of St. Cloud, one for the library at Les Invalides, and one to Milan. They were popular paintings and probably used by Napoleon as propaganda pieces.
The version that went to Spain, eventually went to Joseph Bonaparte when he became King. Upon his abdication, he took the painting with him and it eventually ended up in his estate Point Breeze in New Jersey. The painting was almost destroyed in a fire, but thanks to the population of Point Breeze, they rushed in and saved a lot if not most of Joseph’s art when the fire broke out. The painting was passed down and eventually ended up at Malmaison (in 1949) where it is today. So that would be the “original” work as it was the first one commissioned.
The second painting (which David had help from his students working on the different versions) was commissioned for the Palace of St. Cloud (1801). In 1814 it was removed by Prussian soldiers by Blucher and offered to King William III of Prussia. It is currently at the Charlottenburg Palace in Berlin. Version two:
In 1802, Napoleon hung the second Paris one at Les Invalides. After the restoration, it was taken down by order of the King and kept in storage. In 1827, Louis Philippe had it re-hung at Versailles where it remains today:
The 1803 version was sent to Milan but confiscated by the Austrians in 1816. The people of Milan refused to give it up and it remained in the city until 1825. It was finally installed in the Belvedere in Vienna where it remains.
The fifth version was kept by David until his death and then was shown in a salon. It was offered to Napoleon III, who had it hung in the Tuileries Palace. In 1979 it was given to the Palace of Versailles:
This was not part of the original series:
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