Sketchbook No. 14: Studies for
"The Coronation of Napoleon I," 1805–6

Green quarter-leather binding and green-speckled boards; twenty-nine
pages of off-white antique laid paper
23.7 x 17.9 cm
Bequest of Grenville L. Winthrop
1943.1815.12

On December 2, 1804, the coronation of Napoleon Bonaparte as emperor of the French took place at Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris. This pivotal event, often referred to as the Sacre, was one of the most lavish spectacles in the history of France, and, as the newly appointed first painter to the emperor, Jacques-Louis David was there to record the magnificent ten-hour event. The ceremony’s elaborate protocol was programmed by Napoleon himself, together with his grand master of ceremonies the comte de Ségur, and their efforts were coordinated with those of painter Jean-Baptiste Isabey and architects Charles Percier and Pierre-François-Léonard Fontaine for the overall design and sumptuous decorative details. The result of their collaboration was a cathedral transformed into the world's largest and most extravagant theater. Napoleon, at center stage, was anointed, took the imperial crown away from Pope Pius VII, and crowned himself and then his empress, Josephine.(1)For more on the coronation, see Antoine Schnapper in Jacques-Louis David, 1748–1825, exh. cat., Musée du Louvre and Musée national du château (Paris and Versailles, 1989), 399–418, and Jean Tulard, Le Sacre de l'empereur Napoléon: Histoire et légende (Paris, 2004).

David's magisterial record of the Sacre, now in the Musée du Louvre, in Paris, measures more than twenty by thirty feet and contains nearly two hundred figures.(2)For more on the painting, see Tulard, Le Sacre de l'empereur Napoléon, and Thierry Lentz, ed., Le Sacre de Napoléon, 2 Décembre 1804 (Paris, 2003). Two of David’s fourteen extant sketchbooks belong to the Fogg. Both are related to the celebrated painting.(3)The other sketchbooks are in the Musée du Louvre, the Musée national des châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon, The Art Institute of Chicago, and a private collection; see Louis-Antoine Prat and Pierre Rosenberg, Jacques-Louis David: Catalogue raisonné des dessins (Milan, 2002), vol. 2: 869–1178. Although they reveal David’s tendency to draw from back to front as well as from front to back, in all other respects, unlike Fragonard (his slightly older contemporary) David usually used his sketchbooks quite systematically when working on large projects. This volume—often referred to as "No. 14" because of the inscription on the cover—is a particularly good example of his views on drawing and his exacting method of preparation for such projects. David gave primacy to contour, and some of his figures are first drawn nude in his preferred medium of black chalk in order to grasp their underlying forms. On the next or facing page the same figures appear clothed and/or more fully developed, with all of the minutiae of their coronation regalia delineated down to the last feather and jewel. Some pages also include notes on the sitter or on the colors and fabrics of their costumes, and the more detailed studies are then partially squared for scaled transfer to David’s working composition design.

Like most of David's drawings, the folios of this sketchbook were initialed by his son Eugène, soon after David's death, as a guarantee of authenticity before the sale of the contents of his studio. Eugène or another of the heirs also numbered the folios of the sketchbook. This enables us to document which pages were removed before and which after the numbering took place. Although the binding reveals that the volume probably originally contained forty-six folios, the numbering stops at thirty-four, and only twenty-nine folios remain.

There is little spontaneity, impulsiveness, or correction of the figures displayed on the pages of the Fogg Art Museum’s sketchbooks. This, as well as the meticulous detail found on so many of the clothed figures, suggests that they were drawn at a fairly late stage in the genesis of the painting. The date recently proposed by Pierre Rosenberg is around 1805–6, a point just between David's first fully developed idea for the canvas in 1805, depicted in a recently discovered and dated drawing now in the Fondation Napoléon in Paris, and the final composition used for the painting completed in 1807. The Fogg sketchbooks include figures found in both of these two very different designs.(4)See Prat and Rosenberg, Jacques-Louis David, vol. 2: 1051 (for the dating), and vol. 1: cat. no. 201, 212–213 (for the composition design in the Fondation Napoléon).

1. For more on the coronation, see Antoine Schnapper in Jacques-Louis David, 1748–1825, exh. cat., Musée du Louvre and Musée national du château (Paris and Versailles, 1989), 399–418, and Jean Tulard, Le Sacre de l'empereur Napoléon: Histoire et légende (Paris, 2004).

2. For more on the painting, see Tulard, Le Sacre de l'empereur Napoléon, and Thierry Lentz, ed., Le Sacre de Napoléon, 2 Décembre 1804 (Paris, 2003).

3. The other sketchbooks are in the Musée du Louvre, the Musée national des châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon, The Art Institute of Chicago, and a private collection; see Louis-Antoine Prat and Pierre Rosenberg, Jacques-Louis David: Catalogue raisonné des dessins (Milan, 2002), vol. 2: 869–1178.

4. See Prat and Rosenberg, Jacques-Louis David, vol. 2: 1051 (for the dating), and vol. 1: cat. no. 201, 212–213 (for the composition design in the Fondation Napoléon).