General Baron Claude-Marie Meunier (1770–1846), the artist's son-in-law

General Baron Claude-Marie Meunier, David's son-in-law who had married his daughter Laure-Emilie-Felicite, was painted around 1812 in one of the family portraits that reveal the personal warmth beneath David's austere public persona. The family connection allowed David to combine the formality expected of a military portrait — uniform, decorations, bearing — with the personal knowledge of a relative who had shared family life. Meunier served in Napoleon's armies during the imperial campaigns, and this portrait was painted during the Empire at the height of French military power, before Waterloo destroyed the world that both painter and subject inhabited. David's austere oil technique, meticulous in its rendering of military dress and gold braid, was applied here with a warmth of characterization that distinguishes family portraits from his more distant official commissions. The location of the painting is uncertain, but it remains an important example of David's private portraiture during the Empire period.

Military dress provides the painting's formal structure — gold braid, buttons, and epaulettes are rendered with David's meticulous precision. The face, however, is painted with a warmth and familiarity that distinguish this from David's more distant official portraits.