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'Napoleon on the Bridge at Arcole ' Baron Antione-Jean Gros . Oil on canvas circa 1796-1797.
This painting depicts a famous moment at the Battle of Arcole (1796). Napoleon personally led the decisive assault , where the battle had concentrated itself upon one crucial bridge , and during which Napoleon came to within a hairs breadth of losing his own life . Only a mortally wounded officer saved him by throwing himself at General Bonaparte and intercepting a potential lethal bullet with his own body .
The artist, Baron Antione-Jean Gros , was born in 1771 . At the young age of twelve years he was enrolled as a student in the studio of Jacques-Louis David . It was said the young boy was one of the masters favourites . Eventually he grew up to compete with Jacques-Louis David for commissions from the Emperor Napoleon . By the time he was twenty five he was traveling with Napoleon and his armies as an appraiser of art to be confiscated from conquered lands and sent back home to Paris . It was a practice Jacques-Louis David hated and denounced . The master and protege seldom spoke to one another thereafter . Quite a number of fine paintings in the Louvre however came as a result of this practice and this young man's eye .
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