The painting is six metres by ten. It took David three years to finish. It is the most consequential single piece of imperial propaganda produced by any European regime between Napoleon and the First World War, and it works because David made a specific decision about what to depict that Napoleon, on reflection, ratified.
The historical event was straightforward and well-attended: on the second of December 1804, Napoleon crowned himself Emperor of the French at Notre-Dame, having travelled Pope Pius VII to Paris specifically to bless the ceremony, then declined to allow the Pope to perform the coronation itself. He took the crown from the altar and placed it on his own head, then turned and crowned his wife Joséphine. This was a deliberate political statement. The Holy Roman tradition required the Pope to crown the Emperor, signalling divine sanction. Napoleon refused the sanction without rejecting the form. The Pope was present, witnessed, blessed; the crown was self-applied.
David's first sketches showed Napoleon in the act of self-coronation. Napoleon, on review, objected. The image of a man crowning himself was politically too aggressive, even for the new Emperor. David revised: the final painting shows Napoleon a half-second past the self-coronation, turning to crown Joséphine. The self-crowning has occurred (the crown is in his hands, his head is already crowned with the imperial laurel) but the canvas no longer foregrounds it. The eye is drawn to the gesture toward Joséphine, which is generous, ceremonial, dynastic. The harder political claim has been absorbed into the softer one. Both readings remain available to the viewer; the propaganda has been doubled, not chosen.
Several figures in the painting are not historically accurate to the day. Napoleon's mother, who refused to attend the actual ceremony in protest of the rift between her sons, is shown seated in the central gallery. David added her at Napoleon's instruction. The Pope's hand, which had been passive observation in the original sketches, was raised into active blessing for the final version. These edits are visible in the documentary record. The painting is not a record of what happened; it is a record of what Napoleon wanted the event to have looked like, signed off by the man who was the event. It hangs at the Louvre; a second autograph version is at Versailles.
