In this artwork, how is the Gérôme's images of Napoleon in Egypt discussed?
In the 1860s, Gérôme painted pictures showing Napoleon during the Egyptian campaign of 1798-9. He returned to this theme in the 1880s, and with the sculpture Napoleon Entering Cairo, exhibited in the Paris Salon of 1897.Gérôme was uniquely placed to depict this particular phase of Napoleon's career. He was already famous for his Egyptian genre subjects and landscapes, derived from extensive travel in the region from the mid-1850s onwards. Gérôme’s Napoleonic subjects evoke the notion of destiny; in each of the paintings, Napoleon is shown deep in thought, a striking contrast to conventional military subject paintings depicting specific incidents in a campaign, or heroism in the heat of battle. In Napoleon in Egypt (1863), the young general is shown on his own, set apart from his waiting groom, deep in contemplation.
Napoleon and His General Staff in Egypt (c. 1867) portrays the extreme conditions faced by Napoleon and his army during their short and ill-fated Egyptian campaign. Gérôme's friend Frédéric Masson, who had travelled with him in Egypt and who became a respected biographer of Napoleon, described this painting, noting the hot breath of the wind...the heat and the burning sand which blinds the officers of his staff...the golden mist raised by the Khamsinn...the frightful lassitude which takes possession of the best trained men save those who have compelled the body to be the docile slave of the mind.…[Napoleon] hesitates between the two halves of the world which he holds in his hands; he ponders upon the fate of Alexander, of Caesar....unconscious of suffering, his dream embraces the universe!
Bonaparte in Cairo, described as a pendant to Bonaparte Before the Sphinx, may have been painted at the same time; the paintings are the same size and were sold together to Hearst. Seen side by side, they offer a study in contrasts, as Bonaparte gazes up at the mysterious Sphinx and down upon the conquered city of Cairo.			
			
		
The 1897 sculpture of the young Bonaparte making his 1798 entry into Cairo was the first in a series of historical equestrian figures Gérôme produced during the late 1890s, including Washington, Frederick the Great, Caesar, and Tamerlane. Of the Napoleon statute, a contemporary Salon critic, the sculptor René de Saint-Marceaux, wrote that never before had Gérôme "so brilliantly displayed, as a sculptor, his usual qualities of skilled, refined taste." The original Salon version was bought by the French state for the Luxembourg and, unusually for a purchased unique work, was subsequently reproduced in three sizes by Siot-Decauville. The foundry executed some of these reproductions in  cold painted polychromy.
Napoleon pendant Luxembourg Frédéric Masson Sphinx Salon René de Saint-Marceaux Hearst Egyptian campaign Egyptian campaign of 1798-9