Vive L'Empereur

Perhaps the greatest of all French military painters Detaille served in the Franco-Prussian war in 1870 and at first produced grimly realistic battle scenes. He later became fascinated with the history of French military costume, publishing a large illustrated book on the subject. This painting is a retrospective image recapturing the terrifying drama of a charge of 4th Hussar Regiment in the Napoleonic period, almost 100 years earlier. The picture was restored with support of the Gallery’s Friends of Conservation.