He had a large Napoleonic collection and reportedly, on visiting the Louvre with Paul Delaroche in 1848, he commented on the implausibility and theatricality of David's painting Napoleon Crossing the Alps.
Wiley's Napoleon Leading the Army over the Alps (2005) is based on Napoleon Crossing the Alps (1800) by Jacques-Louis David, often regarded as a "masterpiece", now restaged by Wiley with an African rider wearing modern army fatigues and a bandanna.
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Rouget began his professional career as his master's main assistant until David's exile to Brussels, collaborating with him on the canvases Bonaparte at the Grand-Saint-Bernard, The Coronation of Napoleon (of which he made a copy signed by David), Leonidas at Thermopylae and on one of the three copies of the Portrait of Pope Pius VII.