Bonaparte at the Pont d'Arcole

Gros was a young French painter following the army in Italy in 1796, and through Josephine's help he got the 27-year-old General Bonaparte to sit for him in Milan. What he made became the first great image of the Napoleonic legend: the general on the bridge at Arcole, sword in one hand, the tricolour flag in the other, hair streaming, urging his men across. The real day was messier. Bonaparte did grab a flag and start over the bridge, then turned to find most of his grenadiers had not followed, and he ended up tumbled into the marsh and hauled out of the mud. None of that survives in the picture. This is the version that went into engravings and schoolbooks, the frozen moment of a hero, painted before he was an emperor at all.