AFTER ROBERT-JACQUES-FRANÇOIS-FAUST LEFÈVRE  | Portrait of Napoleon Bonaparte (1769–1821), aged 44

The present painting is based on Lefevre's life-size dated portrait from 1812, today at Apsley House, London.(1) Napoleon is shown wearing a blue uniform with red facings, gold epaulettes, a white waistcoat and the white breeches of a French General. He wears the sash and star of the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour and the croix d'officier of the same Order, together with the Iron Crown of the Order that he had established in 1805, which hangs from his button hole. The book beside his left hand is the Code Napoléon, the French civil code, drafted by four jurists and established under Napoleon in 1804.

1 Inv. no. WM 1491; see C.H. Gibbs-Smith and H.V.T. Percival (eds), The Wellington Museum, Apsley House: A Guide, London 1957, p. 34.