Napoleon Crossing the Alps by Jacques-Louis David is a monumental oil painting completed between October 1800 and January 1801. Measuring an impressive 261 cm by 221 cm and housed in Berlin’s Charlottenburg Palace, this work marks a defining moment in Neoclassicism and French history. Though opinions on the painting vary—some find it stiff and lacking vitality, others dismiss it as mere propaganda, and a few see it as the beginning of David’s submission to Napoleon’s political power—it remains arguably the most iconic portrait of Napoleon Bonaparte ever created.
