Portrait inachevé du général Bonaparte

In the winter of 1797 a 28-year-old general was the most talked-about man in Paris. Bonaparte had just come back from the Italian campaign, and Jacques-Louis David — the Revolution's great painter — got him to sit. The plan was a full portrait of the commander at the battle of Rivoli, the peace treaty he had just signed at Campo Formio in his hand. Bonaparte had little patience for holding still, and the picture was never finished. Only the head and shoulders were carried through, and the rest stays a rough sketch of lines on bare canvas. Years later Napoleon's museum director, Vivant Denon, cut the canvas down to save just the painted face.