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Ingres painted this in 1812, in Rome, for a palace Napoleon had taken over but never lived in, the old papal residence on the Quirinal hill, which the French were fitting out for an emperor who was about to march on Moscow instead. The commission called for something suitably ancient and grand, so Ingres took a story from Plutarch: Romulus, founder of Rome, striking down the enemy king Acron in single combat and carrying off his armour as a trophy. He stretched it into a long, shallow frieze, the figures lined up flat like a carved relief, the horse copied straight from the ancient marbles of the Parthenon. It is not painted in oil but in a chalky glue-based paint, meant to read as fresco on the wall it was made to fill.