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| Rembrandt Peale Portrait of Rubens Peale with a Geranium 1801 oil on canvas National Gallery of Art, Washington DC |
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| Jacques-Louis David Portrait of Jean-Pierre Delahaye 1815 oil on panel Los Angeles County Museum of Art |
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| Jacques-Louis David Portrait of the Comte de Turenne 1816 oil on panel Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen |
"The intimate sentiments of David who, six years after his imprisonment as a supporter of Robespierre, now found himself a man at court, are nowhere recorded. There is a certain amount of evidence to indicate that however justified he felt the honours paid to him as an artist, he could not with any consistency achieve that combination of docility and sturdiness demanded by Napoleon from his entourage. He got tired of being summoned at dawn to walk around Paris and regretted the time wasted; the design of the departmental victory columns, a matter to which he was asked to give his attention, left him fundamentally unmoved; and he preferred the security (and the revenue) of exhibiting his pictures in his own studio to the competitive element involved in exhibiting in the official Salon, now dominated by his pupils."
"David completed his picture [of the coronation of Napoleon and Josephine, on a canvas more than thirty feet wide] in November 1807. The Emperor, who was constantly inquiring after its progress, paid a visit to the studio on 14 January 1808, accompanied by a sizable entourage. He stayed one hour, an unprecedented length of time for him to spend on any one matter. He particularly appreciated the picture's realism. One of his first remarks was, 'What do I see? This is not painting; one can walk around in this picture; life is everywhere.' Then, with truly Imperial arrogance, he pronounced, 'Good, very good, David. You have understood my thoughts, you have made me a French knight. I am grateful to you for recording for posterity the proof of the affection I wished to give to the woman who shares with me the burden of office.' Then, doffing his hat, he said in a loud voice, 'David, I compliment you.' To which David replied, 'Sire, I receive your compliment on behalf of all artists, and am happy to be the one to whom you deign to offer it.'
"Nevertheless, Napoleon called for certain changes to be made, probably to some of the portrait heads. The work was ready by February 1808 after three years of toil, and on the orders of Napoleon himself was exhibited in the Louvre to crowds of visitors. It was removed after a month (in March 1808) in order that a copy should be made for the Gobelins factory. This, like many other Imperial commissions, did not materialize, but David took the unfinished copy with him to Brussels in 1816 and continued to work on it there. Louis Bonaparte, King of Holland, also ordered a copy from David who sent him a letter, on 20 April 1808, detailing the expense to which this would put him and offering to supply the picture for a relatively modest sum if the King would 'give me a mark of the esteem in which he holds my talents by honouring me with the decoration of his order . . . ' The venality of this request explains the ingrained dislike felt for David by his contemporaries far more graphically than do his ci-devant republican excesses."
– Anita Brookner, from Jacques-Louis David (New York: Harper & Row, 1980)
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| Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres Portrait of the Comtesse de Tournon 1812 oil on canvas Philadelphia Museum of Art |
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| Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres Portrait of the Comtesse d'Haussonville 1845 oil on canvas Frick Collection, New York |
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| Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres Portrait of composer Luigi Cherubini 1841 oil on canvas Cincinnati Art Museum |
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| John Constable Portrait of Captain Richard Gubbins 1821 oil on canvas Yale Center for British Art |
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| Thomas Lawrence Portrait of the artist Benjamin West 1810 oil on panel Yale Center for British Art |
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| Thomas Lawrence Portrait of Frederick Hemming ca. 1824-25 oil on canvas Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, Texas |
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| Thomas Lawrence Portrait of Pope Pius VII 1819 oil on canvas Royal Collection, Great Britain |
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| Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg Portrait of the children of C.F. Holm 1832 oil on canvas Hirschsprung Collection, Copenhagen |
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| Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg Portrait of Bella and Hanna Nathanson 1820 oil on canvas Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen |
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| Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg Portrait of Danish sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen 1838 oil on canvas Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen |
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| Samuel Raven Miniature portrait of the Duchess of Clarence, later Queen Adelaide ca. 1818 oil on papier-mâché Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide |