Imaginary portrait of Bohemond I

Bohemond I of Antioch, the Norman crusader who carved out the Principality of Antioch after the First Crusade, appears in the Versailles Crusades gallery as one of the non-French leaders whose participation in the crusading movement connected them to French national history. Blondel's 1843 imaginary portrait participates in the programme of visual reconstruction that the Crusades gallery required: no authentic portrait of Bohemond exists, and Blondel constructed his image from chronicle descriptions emphasising his exceptional height, physical strength, and Norman appearance. The subject's Norman identity was important — the Normans' French connection gave Bohemond's inclusion in a gallery of French history its legitimacy. Bohemond was particularly celebrated in Norman and later French chronicles as an archetype of crusading prowess, making his imaginary portrait an act of cultural memory as much as historical documentation.

The Norman crusader required specific material culture research: Norman armour of the First Crusade period, appropriate to the late eleventh century, differs from both earlier medieval and later Gothic conventions. Blondel based his reconstruction on historical and archaeological sources that were increasingly available as the nineteenth century's scholarly interest in medieval material culture deepened.