Elizabeth Peyton (American, born Danbury, Connecticut, 1965), Napoleon (After Louis David, Le General Bonaparte vers 1797), 2005. Oil on board, 14 × 11 in. (35.6 × 27.9 cm). Courtesy The Brant Foundation, Greenwich, CT.. Courtesy the artist and Gladstone Gallery, New York and Brussels

During a visit to the Louvre in 2004, Peyton saw the famous unfinished late eighteenth-century portrait of Napoleon by Jacques Louis David. The work rekindled her interest in the French general and soon-to-be emperor, and she decided to base her own painting on it. Fascinated that David’s portrait managed to convey the general’s magnetic personality despite its incomplete state, Peyton embraced the reductive aesthetic of the original work, using open brushstrokes to evoke an air of spontaneity. She also endowed her subject with the characteristic androgynous beauty seen in her portraits of pop stars and celebrities, positioning her portrait of Napoleon alongside the imagery of these heroes of our time.

This work is exhibited in the "Unfinished: Thoughts Left Invisible" exhibition, on view through September 4th, 2016. #MetBreuer