Bonaparte Visiting the Plague Victims of Jaffa

Bonaparte visitant les pestiférés de Jaffa
Artist	Antoine-Jean Gros
Year	1804
Medium	Oil on canvas
Dimensions	532 cm × 720 cm (209 in × 280 in)
Location	Louvre, Paris

Bonaparte Visits the Plague Stricken in Jaffa (French: Bonaparte visitant les pestiférés de Jaffa) is an oil-on-canvas painting commissioned by Napoleon Bonaparte and painted in 1804 by Antoine-Jean Gros, portraying an event during the French invasion of Egypt.^[1] The scene shows Napoleon during a striking scene which is supposed to have occurred in Jaffa on 11 March 1799, depicting the French general making a visit to his ill soldiers at the Armenian Saint Nicholas Monastery.

The commission was an attempt to embroider Bonaparte's mythology and quell reports that Napoleon had ordered fifty plague victims in Jaffa be given fatal doses of opium during his retreat from his Syrian expedition. It also served a propaganda purpose in countering reports of French atrocities during their capture of Jaffa. On 18 September 1804, the painting was exhibited at the Salon de Paris, between Napoleon's proclamation as emperor on 18 May and his coronation at Notre-Dame de Paris on 2 December. Dominique Vivant Denon, who participated in Bonaparte's expedition to Egypt and was now director of the musée du Louvre, acted as advisor to Gros on it. The painting now forms part of the collection of French paintings at the Louvre.^[1]