19th Century Portrait Oil Painting Napoleonic Red Tunic French Drummer Boy François Joseph Mara

Large 19th Century portrait oil painting military red coat Napoleonic French Drummer Boy François Joseph Bara. Title "18th Century Napoleonic Drummer Boy” Dated 95 for 1895 After Jacques-Louis David. Subject in three quarter length front profile view portrait believed to be the known French military drummer boy scene during the Napoleonic era François Joseph Bara. Wearing a red coat tunic with a white shirt & gold buttons, carrying holding his brown wood barrel drum. Above with his bicorne hat with gold lace trim & having white trousers. He is looking directly at the viewer, he has blue eyes and red rosy cheeks angelic look. In the style of after Jacques-Louis David. Signed by the British Victorian era artist M Sanderson. In our opinion this such a fine work. Circa late 19th century dated 95 for 1895. Medium is oil on canvas with beautiful detail. Set in a fine gilt frame which enhances this painting further, with hanging thread on the back ready for immediate home display. François Joseph Bara, also written Barra (30 July 1779 in Palaiseau[1 – 7 December 1793 in Jallais), was a young French republican drummer boy at the time of the Revolution, and is known for his death and martyrdom at only 14 years old at the hands of pro-Monarchist forces at Vendée. Bara's father was a woodranger and his mother was a domestic servant. Both worked in the Palaiseau district for the Princes of Condé. When Bara was twelve his father died, so when the Levée en masse was issued, his mother enlisted him as an army volunteer. Bara was too young to join the army but attached himself to a unit fighting counter revolutionariesin Vendée. After his death, General J.-B. Desmarres gave this account, by letter, to the convention. "Yesterday this courageous youth, surrounded by brigands, chose to perish rather than give them the two horses he was leading". The boy's death was seized on as an opportunity by revolutionaries, who praised him at the Convention's tribune saying that "only the French have thirteen-year-old heroes". But rather than simply being killed by Breton royalists who solely wanted to steal horses, Bara was transformed into a figure who denied the Ancien Régime at the cost of death. His story became that having been trapped by the enemy and being ordered to cry "Vive le Roi" ("Long live the King") to save his own life, he preferred instead to die crying "Vive la République" ("Long live the Republic"). His remains were to be transferred to the Panthéon during a revolutionary festival in his honour but the event was cancelled when Robespierre was overthrown the day before it was to take place. Jacques-Louis David (French: 30th August 1748 - 29th December 1825) was a French painter in the Neoclassical style, considered to be the preeminent painter of the era. In the 1780s, his cerebral brand of history painting marked a change in taste away from Rococo frivolity toward classical austerity, severity, and heightened feeling] which harmonized with the moral climate of the final years of the Ancien Régime. David later became an active supporter of the French Revolution and friend of Maximilien Robespierre (1758–1794), and was effectively a dictator of the arts under the French Republic. Imprisoned after Robespierre's fall from power, he aligned himself with yet another political regime upon his release: that of Napoleon, the First Consul of France. At this time he developed his Empire style, notable for its use of warm Venetiancolours. After Napoleon's fall from Imperial power and the Bourbon revival, David exiled himself to Brussels, then in the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, where he remained until his death. David had many pupils, making him the strongest influence in French art of the early 19th century, especially academic Salon painting. Provenance Doic Wilson & Wheatley Fine Art Dealers of Edinburgh, Museum label & in collection of Cheshire Antiques Consultant Ltd. We only select & sell paintings based upon subject, quality & significance. We provide our clients with friendly professional customer service. Viewings are welcome by appointment only for customer support please send a message thank you. Checkout our exciting other Fine Arts, antiques & collectibles available in our shop gallery.