Guillaume Tell renversant la barque sur laquelle le gouverneur Gessler traversait le lac de Lucerne

Painted in 1791 and held by the Musée des Augustins in Toulouse, this large canvas depicting Guillaume Tell Capsizing the Boat Carrying Governor Gessler represents the Swiss national hero's most dramatic act of defiance. The legend of William Tell — forced to shoot an apple from his son's head and subsequently killing the tyrannical Austrian governor Gessler — became a powerful Revolutionary allegory in 1791, just as French constitutional monarchy was being established and the right of resistance to tyranny was a live political question. Vincent's choice of subject in 1791 was unmistakably political: Tell was the embodiment of popular liberty against aristocratic oppression, a reading that would have resonated powerfully at the Salon. The Musée des Augustins holds major French eighteenth and early nineteenth-century paintings, and this canvas has been recognized as one of Vincent's most politically charged history paintings.

The dramatic storm setting on Lake Lucerne allows Vincent to combine figure action with a turbulent natural backdrop — a combination unusual in his more restrained history paintings. The composition focuses on Tell's physical exertion and the capsizing moment, with Gessler's helplessness contrasting with the hero's controlled power.