A sketch by Gros for Malmaison

13/1/25 - Restoration and acquisition - Rueil-Malmaison, Musée des châteaux de Malmaison et Bois-Préau - The year is off to a good start for the Malmaison museum. Naturally, it has chosen to highlight its latest acquisition (ill. 1) on its greetings card, which looks particularly splendid: full of panache, this sketch by Gros has never before been unveiled to the general public, even though its interest is as much artistic as it is historical. Its - necessary - entry into the national collections was admittedly late, but it benefited from funding from the Ministry of Culture’s Heritage Fund, which was exceptionally mobilised for the occasion. Reappearing yellowed to the extreme at a sale at Christie’s in Paris in October 2022, it was acquired by the Talabardon & Gautier gallery, which undertook to study and, above all, restore it in the run-up to their exhibition organised over a year ago (see the news item of 27/11/23).

At the time, we were already won over by the extraordinary freedom of brushstroke in this canvas, which is so monumental despite its modest dimensions. It was probably sent to the Salon of 1801, where it was noticed by an article in the Moniteur universel. It would be enlightening to imagine a focus exhibition in which this lively sketch would finally be compared with the one in the Wallace Collection (ill. 2) and the final painting, completed in 1802. The many differences between these works betray a complex genesis, which is worth examining in greater detail: the sword of honour at the heart of the action immortalised by Gros’s brush is only really present in the Malmaison sketch, as the legible inscription on the shape of…