Esquisse pour l'Hôtel de Ville de Paris : Apothéose de Napoléon Ier

This 1853 sketch on canvas is a preparatory study for the decorative programme Ingres was commissioned to design for the great ceiling of the Hôtel de Ville in Paris — a project that was ultimately destroyed when the building burned during the Paris Commune of 1871. The subject, the apotheosis of Napoleon I, required Ingres to reconcile his political complexity: he had long been associated with Bonapartist patronage but was working under the Second Empire of Napoleon III. The sketch shows Napoleon elevated to a quasi-divine status, surrounded by allegorical figures in a composition that draws on the tradition of baroque ceiling decoration while maintaining Ingres's characteristic linear control. The loss of the finished ceiling makes this sketch and related studies particularly valuable as documents of a major commission. The Musée des Beaux-Arts de la ville de Paris holds it as a record of the destroyed original.

As a preparatory sketch, the canvas shows looser, more fluid handling than Ingres's finished works, with composition and figure placement taking priority over surface finish. The paint is applied economically, establishing tonal relationships and compositional structure without complete resolution. Allegorical figures are indicated broadly, their poses worked out rather than finalised.