Bonaparte visiting the plague-victims of Jaffa
| Bonaparte visitant les pestiférés de Jaffa | |
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| Artist | Antoine-Jean Gros |
| Year | 1804 |
| Medium | Oil on canvas |
| Dimensions | 532 cm × 720 cm (209 in × 280 in) |
| Location | Louvre, Paris |
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 Gros's Napoleon Bonaparte Visiting the Plague-Stricken in Jaffa, Smarthistory
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Bonaparte Visits the Plague Stricken in Jaffa (French: Bonaparte visitant les pestiférés de Jaffa) is an 1804 painting commissioned by Napoleon Bonaparte from Antoine-Jean Gros to portray an event during the Egyptian Campaign. The scene shows Napoleon during a striking scene which occurred in Jaffa on 11 March 1799, when then General Bonaparte made a daring and spectacular visit to his sick soldiers at the Armenian Saint Nicholas Monastery. It was an attempt to quell unsavory rumours after Napoleon ordered that fifty incurable dying plague victims in Jaffa be poisoned (without complete success) during his retreat from his Syrian expedition.
This is part of the collection of French paintings at the Louvre.
On 18 September 1804, the painting was exhibited at the Salon de Paris, between Napoleon's proclamation as emperor on 18 May and his coronation at Notre-Dame de Paris on 2 December. Dominique Vivant Denon, who participated in Bonaparte's expedition to Egypt and was now director of the musée du Louvre, acted as advisor to Grosse on it.
This painting uses elements of the composition of Jacques-Louis David's 1784 Oath of the Horatii, also held at the Louvre, such as the three arcades from Oath which defined three different worlds (the three sons making the oath in the left one; the father brandishing the swords in the middle; the women abandoned to sadness in the right-hand one), a principle taken up in this painting too.
It is sometimes mistaken to be set in a mosque but is actually set in the Armenian Saint Nicholas Monastery, whose courtyard can be seen in the background. Further into the background are the walls of Jaffa, with a breached tower above which flies an oversized French flag. The smoke from a fire, or excessive cannon smoke, dominates the town.
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Wikipedia