Bildnis des Grafen Antoine Français de Nantes

David painted this in 1811, the high-water mark of Napoleon's empire, the year the emperor at last got a son and heir. The sitter, Antoine Francais de Nantes, was a made man of that regime, a count of the Empire, a prefect, a senior officer of the Legion of Honour, and he had David, Napoleon's own painter, record him in full official dress. Unusually, David worked on a wood panel rather than canvas, in the manner of the old Flemish masters, and rendered the silk, velvet, feathers and gold embroidery with a cold, glittering precision. He set the count seen slightly from below, which lets him look down on us with the faint disdain contemporaries said he really had. Within three years the Empire had fallen, and David would follow it into exile in Brussels.