Napoleon On Horseback 

Jean-Baptiste Édouard Detaille painted Napoleon on Horseback in France sometime in the late 19th or early 20th century. It is an image of power and authority, meant to tap into the cult of Napoleon that emerged in France in the decades after his death. Images like this were crucial to the way the memory of Napoleon was kept alive and re-packaged for later generations. They show Napoleon as a solitary, heroic figure surveying his troops on the battlefield. But what did it mean to create such images decades after his death? France had gone through multiple revolutions and changes of government in the intervening years. Perhaps this image is longing for a more glorious past, or trying to make a statement about leadership in Detaille’s own time. To learn more, we can research the artistic and political climate in France during Detaille’s lifetime. Considering the way that national identity was being constructed and re-constructed in this period will shed more light on the painting.