Bonaparte, First Consul
Bonaparte, First Consul is a portrait painted by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres in 1804, showing Napoleon Bonaparte at the height of his early authority. It hangs today in the Curtius Museum in Liège, a city whose own history is woven into every detail of the canvas. The portrait captures a man who was 34 years old, seated in civilian dress, his right hand poised above a document. But the painting is not simply a likeness. It is a political argument, a civic gift, and a piece of calculated symbolism. What brought Ingres to paint this particular man, in this particular city, at this particular moment? And why does the painting show a cathedral that, at the time it was made, had already been torn down?
On the 1st of August 1803, Napoleon Bonaparte arrived in Liège, pausing for two days as part of a triumphal march through nine newly annexed French départements. The city responded with an extraordinary outpouring. Its population tripled during those two days, with crowds pressing close enough that some knelt in his path. Bonaparte stood on the terrace of a hôtel particulier on the Mont-Saint-Martin and surveyed Liège, making immediate and specific judgments about what he saw. He criticised the église Saint-Jean-en-l'Isle and ordered a bell tower for the new cathédrale Saint-Paul, which the church still lacked.
When Bonaparte reached the Amercœur quarter, the scene shifted. Austrian bombardment in 1794, in the aftermath of the battle of Sprimont, had left the suburb in ruins. The misery of the inhabitants moved him, and he responded swiftly, decreeing 300,000 francs to the prefect of Ourthe, baron Micoud d'Umons, to fund the area's reconstruction. That same evening, he told the Second Consul that he was, in his own words, "extremely content at the spirit of the inhabitants of Liège." As a further gesture, he announced that he would send the city a portrait of himself, painted by Ingres, to be delivered a year later.
Ingres was not the only artist called upon for this purpose. Five painters in total received commissions to produce full-length portraits of Napoleon for distribution to the prefectural towns of cities newly ceded to France under the 1801 Treaty of Lunéville. The other painters were Jean-Baptiste Greuze, Robert Lefèvre, Charles Meynier, and Marie-Guillemine Benoist. Their respective portraits were destined for Antwerp, Dunkerque, Brussels, and Ghent.
Ingres had only just made his debut at the Salon the year before the commission arrived. He was 23 years old when he received the assignment for Liège. Unable to arrange a sitting with Bonaparte himself, he worked instead from a 1802 portrait by Antoine-Jean Gros, adapting the pose from that earlier image to suit his own composition.
Bonaparte appears in the portrait wearing a red uniform, the dress of a consul of the republic, with his hair cut short. This is a deliberate contrast to other images of the period. In Gros's Bonaparte au pont d'Arcole, Napoleon wears the blue uniform of a military man and rests his hand on his sword. Ingres instead places his subject's hand inside his jacket, the civilian gesture that portraits of rulers conventionally used to signal calm and stable authority.
The document beneath Bonaparte's right hand bears the title "Faubourg d'Amercœur rebâti," meaning the Amercœur suburb rebuilt. This refers directly to the decree Napoleon signed in 1803 for the prefecture of the Ourthe département. By showing Bonaparte in the act of signing it, Ingres made the image serve as a reminder to the newly annexed city of the material benefits that French rule could bring.
Through the open curtain behind Bonaparte, St. Lambert's Cathedral in Liège appears whole and complete. In reality, the cathedral was being demolished at that very time, dismantled during the Liège Revolution. Its presence in the painting was not an error. It was a statement.
The choice to paint St. Lambert's Cathedral as intact carried a specific political charge in 1804. French relations with the papacy had been strained since 1790, when the civil constitution of the clergy was enacted, formally severing the French Republic's ties to Catholic institutional authority. By showing the ruined cathedral restored, Ingres gave visual form to a more recent development: the concordat of 1801, which had resumed official relations between France and the Church and extended the First French Republic's formal protection to Catholicism.
The painting situates itself at the intersection of two kinds of reconciliation. The Amercœur decree addressed local grievances caused by war and bombardment. The restored cathedral addressed the longer fracture between the French state and religious authority. Both the excesses of the Revolution and those of the counter-revolutionaries are held in tension by the image, placed in a context the painting frames as détente.
Up Next
Continue Browsing
Common questions
Who painted Bonaparte First Consul and when was it completed?
Bonaparte, First Consul was painted by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres and completed in 1804. Ingres was 23 years old when he received the commission, and he based the pose on a 1802 portrait of Napoleon by Antoine-Jean Gros because he could not secure a sitting with Bonaparte himself.
Where is the painting Bonaparte First Consul by Ingres now?
The painting is held in the collection of the Curtius Museum in Liège, Belgium. It was commissioned specifically as a gift to the city of Liège from Napoleon Bonaparte.
Why did Napoleon commission a portrait for the city of Liège?
Napoleon announced his intention to give Liège a portrait of himself after visiting the city on the 1st of August 1803 during his march through the nine newly annexed French départements. He was moved by the destruction of the Amercœur quarter and decreed 300,000 francs for its reconstruction, telling the Second Consul he was extremely content with the spirit of Liège's inhabitants.
What does the document in Ingres Bonaparte First Consul portrait represent?
The document beneath Napoleon's right hand is titled "Faubourg d'Amercœur rebâti," meaning the Amercœur suburb rebuilt. It refers to the actual decree Napoleon signed in 1803 directing the prefecture of the Ourthe département to restore the suburb, which had been devastated by Austrian bombardment in 1794.
Why is St. Lambert's Cathedral shown intact in the Bonaparte First Consul painting?
The cathedral was actually being demolished during the Liège Revolution at the time Ingres painted it, but it appears whole and complete in the background. The restored image symbolised the resumption of good relations between France and the Catholic Church following the concordat of 1801, which ended the rupture that began with the civil constitution of the clergy in 1790.
What is the significance of Napoleon's civilian pose in the Ingres portrait?
Ingres painted Napoleon in the red uniform of a consul of the republic with his hand placed inside his jacket rather than resting on a sword. Posing the hand inside the waistcoat was a convention in portraiture of rulers used to signal calm and stable leadership, contrasting with the military imagery in other portraits of Napoleon such as Gros's Bonaparte au pont d'Arcole.