The Battle of Austerlitz, 2nd December 1805

François Gérard's The Battle of Austerlitz of 1808 commemorates Napoleon's greatest victory — the December 2, 1805 defeat of the combined Austrian and Russian armies — on the first anniversary of his coronation. Gérard depicted the battle's decisive moment when French troops swept down from the Pratzen Heights to cut the Allied army in two, with Napoleon observing from high ground surrounded by his marshals. The painting served the Napoleonic propaganda machine that systematically created a visual mythology of invincibility, and Gérard's treatment balanced the documentary scale expected of battle painting with the heroic grandeur of history painting.

The monumental canvas uses sweeping horizontal composition to convey the vast scale of the battle. Gérard combines portrait-like precision in rendering Napoleon and his staff with more atmospheric treatment of the distant fighting.