Napoleon

Nicolas Toussaint Charlet · after 1835

Medium

Watercolor and gouache, over traces of graphite, on tan wove paper

Original size

13.2 × 16.3 cm (5 1/4 × 6 7/16 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Neoclassicism

This intimate portrait captures Napoleon not as a triumphant conqueror but as a figure weathered by history — rendered in the soft, luminous layers that made Charlet's work so emotionally resonant. Nicolas Toussaint Charlet was one of the foremost chroniclers of the Napoleonic legend in post-Empire France. A student of Géricault, he devoted much of his career to depicting soldiers, veterans, and the spirit of an era already passing into myth. Working in watercolor and gouache over graphite on tan wove paper, he built form through delicate washes and controlled opacity, achieving a warmth and immediacy that oil painters of the period rarely matched in small-scale portraiture. His technique rewards close attention — the layering gives skin and fabric a quiet depth. Charlet was so associated with the Napoleonic mystique that contemporary critics called him the "painter of the grognards," the old guard veterans who remained fiercely loyal to the Emperor long after Waterloo. The hand-painted oil reproduction translates Charlet's restrained palette and nuanced modelling into the richer medium of oil on canvas, preserving the psychological weight of the original while giving the image a presence suited to display on any wall.