Resumen de History Repeats Itself in Jean-Léon Gérôme's "Reception of the Siamese Ambassadors"
In 1861, the French emperor Napoléon III welcomed ambassadors from Siam (Thailand) at the Palace of Fontainebleau. The French government hired Jean-Léon Gérôme to document the event in a painting that glorified Napoléon III and validated France's imperialist achievements and ambitions in Southeast Asia. Gérôme labored for three years on the composition, scrupulously studying historical models for this type of image that inspired his work. Yet when the canvas was unveiled in 1865, it fell flat. Ironically, it functioned more effectively as propaganda for the king of Siam, who acquired a copy of the painting in the late 1860s.
