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When Napoleon’s ashes were repatriated in 1840, Horace Vernet delivered a picture to be engraved to the engraver Jean-Pierre Jazet (1788-1856).
It depicted Napoleon emerging from his tomb, an allegory of the sovereign clearly based on the iconography of Christ.

The picture is no longer extant, but it was widely disseminated on numerous objects which have survived: snuffboxes, scarves etc... These testify to the ardour which greeted the repatriation of the Emperor’s ashes, a key moment in the elaboration of the Napoleonic legend, interpreted at the time as the resurrection of the Emperor and of the fame of the French Empire.

Napoleon emerging from his tomb After Horace Vernet © Malmaison, musées nationaux de Malmaison et de Bois-Préau	Napoleon emerging from his tomb After Horace Vernet © Malmaison, musées nationaux Malmaison et de Bois-Préau