Circle of Louis Gauffier

Essay:

This portrait of General Jacques Darnaud depicts the sitter as the proud hero and commander of Genoa with the city visible in the background. Bedecked in medals and honours, Darnaud stands with his arms confidently crossed, sabre at his side, pride undaunted by his prosthetic leg. Darnaud led an extremely successful, and extremely fraught, career in the French army over several decades fighting in more than a dozen battles and sustaining several serious injuries.

Barely out of his teens when he joined the Royalist Army in 1777, Darnaud was swiftly promoted up the ranks, reaching the position of sergeant major in 1787. Darnaud swapped sides near the outset of the Revolution and continued advancing in his career. He served bravely with the Army of the North and fought in one of the unsuccessful blockades of Ehrenbreitstein in 1796.

Darnaud was in Italy from 1797 and fought in several battles, most notably the Siege of Genoa (6 April – 4 June 1800) where French forces defended the city against an Austrian army. Here Darnaud distinguished himself in combat and was later named commander of the city in April 1801. It was during the siege that Darnaud was shot in the knee, an injury so serious that it required the amputation of his leg. Darnaud returned to France in August 1802 where he was elected to several esteemed military and political roles until his death in 1830. A hero to the nation, was made a Baron of the Empire in 1809 and his name is among those engraved on the Arc de Triomphe.

Provenance:

Private collection, UK