In 1806 Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres finished a monumental portrait of Napoleon (pictured below), sitting four-square on a gilded throne. He wore a Roman emperor's laurel crown, the embroidered gold slippers of a medieval king and an ermine shoulder cape that was grander than the pope's. There is no missing the symbolism here; this is a portrait of monarchy itself, invincibility in its purest form.
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