Baron Joseph-Pierre Vialetès de Mortarieu shows the stylish mayor of Montauban, Ingres' hometown

Montauban is in the Montauban généralité, an area of France not too far from the border of Spain. The Baron de Mortarieu fled Montauban for Paris during The Revolutionary Terror, which was an actual terrifying thing, not a Ben & Jerry's flavor. Once everyone calmed down a little, de Mortarieu went home to assume the office of mayor.

Montauban had a charitable fund in the name of de Mortarieu. In a small town, people have to get along with each other, and de Mortarieu may have wanted to look fly for his political office of the mayorship. Although Ingres had studied the flashy, glitzy, tabloid revolutionary painting of David, which would become the model for fascist and socialist propaganda artforms, he ain't forget his roots, and he came back to Montauban to do a solid for the homie de Mortarieu, who had given Ingres' dad a job back in the day. This part of the story is like the beginning of Ice Cube's movie Friday: two guys from the same town waiting for their fifteen minutes.

Ingres knew how to keep the flame of revolutionary propaganda alive, and his portrait of the Baron got the attention of his buddies with whom he had copied the work of Raphael in David's studio in Paris: a few years later, the Emperor himself announced that he would be visiting the region. Given that this is a significant part of de Mortarieu's life story, it underscores how much people in those days, and these too, spend their time waiting for some celebrity, some kingpin or tastemaker to notice them, so they can bask in their spotlight soak up some glitter juice.

De Mortarieu decides to spend as much energy and as many resources as possible in preparing Montauban for the possible visit of the Emperor, putting clear plastic on all his nice couches and not letting anyone sit on them. He wants pageantry, fanfare, expenditure, sacrifice, and a spectacular honor guard.

He must have had a great horoscope that year: on July 27, the Emperor announced that he would pass through Montauban with Empress Josephine, and, after two days of panicked scrambling, the couple arrived. This visit brought recognition to Montauban, and both the mayor and Ingres donated money and artwork to the Ingres-Bourdelle town hall museum, which still functions today. World War II was a scary time for French paintings, so they secretly hid the Napoleon fave Mona Lisa in the Ingres-Bourdelle Museum, where nobody ever considered looking for it.