Probablement offert par Antoine-Jean Gros au peintre Vincenzo Camuccini ;

Collection du peintre Vincenzo Camuccini (1771-1844) ;

Puis par descendance à son arrière-arrière-petit-fils ;

Collection particulière, Rome

Corrado Maltese, "Un ritratto di Bonaparte e un disegno di Antoine Gros", Bollettino d'Arte, 1959, p. 232, repr. fig. 2

The reappearance of this previously unknown drawing gives to Gros that which is rightfully his: the invention of Romanticism in French portraiture. Here, a few fierce pencil strokes were enough to create the most famous portrait of Napoleon Bonaparte. Youth, audacity and movement are all suggested in a burst of concise marks. Never has an artist's instinct been closer to that of the brilliant, impetuous general. His rapid, impulsive but succinct style expressed an ardent sensitivity, wrote Gérard Auguier in his preface to the catalogue of the Delestre collection sale (Artcurial, 22 March 2017), recalling the view of art historian Elie Faure that Gros represented the: “passage angoissé de l’immobilité de David au tumulte de Delacroix”.

On 27 March 1796, Bonaparte took up his command of the Armée d’Italie - the field army of the French military used for operations in Italy - and began an offensive against the Kingdom of Sardinia and its Austrian allies. It was then that the famous episode of the Arcole Bridge took place. Let us retrace the main events of this crucial moment in the Italian campaign, which would cement the legend of Napoleon’s being the reincarnation of Alexander the Great.

After defeating the Piedmontese and the Austrians, the Armée d’Italie advanced into Lombardy and laid siege to Mantua. In response, Austria sent two new armies under the command of Davidovitch and Alvinczy to prevent the city from being taken. Bonaparte, who had retreated to Verona, decided to focus his efforts on Alvinczy by cutting them off from their rearguard. He charged General Vaubois with containing Davidovitch and left 9,000 men to fight the Austrian Dagobert von Würmser, who was trapped in Mantua. Leaving Verona, Bonaparte launched his attack on 15 November (or 25 Brumaire). Augereau crosses the Adige river at Ronco but was stopped by heavy fire protecting the crucial passage of the Arcole bridge. Brandishing a flag, Augereau rushed to cross it but was forced to retreat in the face of enemy fire. The soldiers drew back in panic. Bonaparte, heeding only his own courage, grabbed a standard and sped to the head of the grenadiers to force the enemy barricade. On the left flank, Masséna managed to get through and rally the army, while on the right, General Guieu was able to reach Arcole. Yet Bonaparte remained concerned and withdrew with his men to Ronco, where he devoted himself to wearing down the Austrians until the moment he deemed favourable for a general attack. On the 16th, the manoeuvre was repeated and Augereau once again failed in front of the bridge, while Masséna advanced on the left and managed to push back the Austrian right wing. In the night of the 16th to the 17th, Bonaparte, thanks to the Andréossy engineers, managed to have a bridge built in front of Arcole, from where Augereau could take the village from the side, while Masséna attacked from the front. Everything went according to plan, and Masséna managed to capture the bridge at Arcole. Alvinczy, who had lost 10,000 men, retreated, just as Vaubois was being defeated by Davidovitch. Bonaparte, still covered in mud and with his eardrums ringing, travels to Milan to be reunited with Josephine with whom he was madly in love.

It is in Milan that Bonaparte first meets Gros and, before returning to the front, agrees to spend a few minutes posing for this painter who so resembled him. Haggard to the point of gauntness, young and of the same generation, with the same long hair, and like Bonaparte, hungry for glory.

In the midst of the Reign of Terror, Gros, a pupil of David since 1785, had obtained a pass from his master to travel to Italy in 1793. He had hoped to go to Rome, but political turmoil kept him in Genoa, a city that was neutral towards the French. There he suffered great hardship, giving the occasional drawing lesson to make ends meet. He obtained commissions for portraits thanks to Faitpoult, the French envoy to Genoa, and his wife. It was through them that hope finally appeared with a first commission for a “Figure de la République”.

When Josephine gave in to Bonaparte's pleas to join him in Italy (they had married in March 1796), she stopped in Genoa, where she was received by the Faitpoult.

Gros himself would say: “As I often visited Citizen Faitpoult, the French Republic's envoy to Genoa, and as he held me in some esteem and friendship, I asked him and his wife to introduce me to Citizen Bonaparte upon his arrival, in the sole hope of being able to paint the general's portrait, whose glory and the details I had been given about his appearance only served to heighten my desire (see Jean-Baptiste Delestre, Gros, sa vie et ses ouvrages, Paris, 1867, p.33).

Gros showed Josephine two paintings to demonstrate his skills: a family portrait and the portrait of a man ‘with a stern appearance, as he had imagined Bonaparte’. Josephine was impressed and took the young artist with her to Milan. Once there, she introduced Gros to the great man. Gros recounts the words exchanged at that moment. “I have an important subject to tackle, or at least that is my ardent desire,” [began the artist]. ‘How so?’ [asked the general]. “Your portrait.” He bowed his head slightly and modestly. I was invited to stay for dinner.” Gros was also invited to stay at the Palazzo Serbelloni, where the couple was staying. The only sitting with the hurried general is recounted by Gros in a letter written to his mother on 17 Frimaire 1796: "I have just begun the portrait of the general; but the little time he gives me cannot even be called a sitting. I do not have time to choose my colours; I must resign myself to painting only the character of his physiognomy, and after that, to the best of my ability, to give it the appearance of a portrait. But I am encouraged, as he is already satisfied with the little that is on the canvas. I am very anxious to see the head almost finished." (Jean-Baptiste Delestre, op. cit. p.34).

Our drawing, whose haste of execution can be seen in the liveliness of each gestural mark, was perhaps done on that day. The composition of the painting is ingenious. We can detect the general precept that Gros would later teach to his many pupils: "One must proceed as a whole; a whole of movement, of lengths, of light and shadow, an overall effect. You must not, he would say, concern yourself with one part without looking at the whole. Are you drawing the head? Look at the feet, and so on" (Jean-Baptiste Delestre, op. cit., p. 356).

In the smoke of the cannons, Bonaparte has seized the flag and raised it vigorously above his head. Sword drawn, already moving forward, he looks back at his troops to urge them to follow him. His features, sharp as the blade of a knife, his aquiline nose, his mouth closed in a straight line, his determined air suggest a fearless hero instilling courage in his soldiers. His shoulder-length hair is tousled, the flag is fluttering, and the nervous strokes of pencil indicate a rush of air and movement. Death lurks around him, but Bonaparte is oblivious: he recklessly crosses the hail of bullets in order to galvanise his men and make them forget their fear.

This “vivante image de l’héroïsme”, as Delacroix put it, was transposed into painting and purchased by Bonaparte. The success of the painting, exhibited first at the Salon of 1801 and since in the Louvre, has never waned.

Bonaparte's action at Arcole is one of the rare occasions where Bonaparte stepped out of his role as commander-in-chief to show that he had the makings of a classic military hero, the likes of Bayard or Du Guesclin. Bonaparte, extremely pleased with Gros' portrait, immediately had it engraved by Giuseppe Longhi so that it could be distributed to the troops and in the papers reporting his triumph to the people.

From that moment on, Gros' career was tied to the destiny of Napoléon Bonaparte.

This drawing by Gros comes from the collection of the painter Vincenzo Camuccini (Rome, 1771–1844). An admirer of David, Camuccini (fig. 2) was a major painter of the Neoclassical movement. He found in the ideas of the Republic a striking correlation with the tragic subjects of Antiquity that so fascinated him. Like Appiani and so many others, he saw in the application of the principles of the Republic the renewal of his own country. He met Gros in Italy and travelled to Paris in 1810. Between 1814 and 1824, he served as inspector of paintings for the Papacy; in 1825, King Ferdinand I of Naples appointed him director of the Academy of Naples in Rome.

The handwritten inventory of his collection describes our drawing as follows: Ritratto di Napoleone disegnato dal vero da Mr Gros allor che si trouvara in Genova come Generale {it was indeed Gros who was based in Genoa and who made a short trip to Milan to paint Bonaparte’s portrait}, all’eta di Venti Sei anni, stando egli stesso all’azione al pittore valendo che lo rappresentasse nell’azione di togliere la Bandiera al portabandiera alla Battaglia d’Arcole ed in tale azione ne dipinse il quadro Mr Gros (fig. 3). Vincenzo Camuccini's very important collection of old master paintings was largely sold by his heirs to the Duke of Northumberland in 1855, but albums of drawings remained to unearth at least one masterpiece: our drawing.

We would like to thank Dr Pier Ludovico Puddu for the invaluable information that he gave us regarding the drawing’s provenance as well as for his assistance in the writing of this lot essay. We would also like to thank Gérard Auguier for having examined the work in person and confirming its authenticity and Valérie Bajou for having examined the work in person and confirming its authenticity.