After the fall of Napoleon, Jacques-Louis David lost his exhaulted status as the “First Painter to the Emperor” and went into self-imposed exile in Brussels. One of his first portraits in Brussels was of Etienne-Maurice Gerard, a retired General in the French army. General Gerard had led a life as politically shifting as David himself, serving the monarchy, the revolutionary republics, and Napoleon. Valued by each government as a brave and skilled leader, he won distinction in dozens of conflicts, and was made a count by Napoleon after sustaining wounds in the battle of Leipzig.
David’s portrait was painted in Brussels in 1816, where General Gerard was spending a quiet retirement. But you can't keep a good soldier down, and only a year later Gerard returned to France, where he eventually participated in the July Revolution of 1830, and was appointed the extremely badass title, Minister of War.
