Short answers, pulled from the story.
Antoine-Jean Gros (1771-1835) was a French painter of historical subjects who became Napoleon Bonaparte's favored visual chronicler. His major canvases, including Bonaparte Visiting the Plague Victims of Jaffa and Napoleon at the Battlefield of Eylau, now hang in the Louvre and the Palace of Versailles.
Gros trained under Jacques-Louis David in Paris, entering his studio towards the close of 1785. His father, Jean-Antoine Gros, had also taught him to draw from the age of six.
Bonaparte at the Pont d'Arcole was a portrait painted by Gros in 1796 depicting Napoleon at the Battle of Arcole. Measuring 130 by 94 centimeters, it brought Gros to public attention and secured Napoleon's personal patronage, leading to his appointment as inspecteur aux revues with the French army.
Napoleon commissioned the painting to counter British propaganda about his Egyptian campaign of 1798-1800, specifically allegations that he had ordered the massacre of Turkish prisoners and the poisoning of French plague victims. The finished canvas, now in the Louvre at 715 by 523 centimeters, depicted Napoleon compassionately touching a sick soldier.
Gros was granted the title of Baron Gros in 1824 by King Charles X of France. He had earlier been made a member of the Legion of Honour by Napoleon on the 22nd of October 1808.
Gros committed suicide by drowning in 1835, following the failure of his painting Hercules and Diomedes at the Salon of 1835. His close friend Elisabeth Vigee Le Brun had met him the day before and observed him brooding over the criticism he had received for that work.