In the winter of 1812, Napoleon’s army retreated from Moscow under harrowing conditions, pursued by the Russian army amid a paralyzing cold. At the center of this canvas, General Ney is depicted on horseback leading the troops to safety. Ary Scheffer was a close friend of Ney’s son, and the canvas, painted fourteen years after these terrible events and more than a decade after Napoleon’s fall from power, was meant as an homage to this great general and to the French Empire. Scheffer’s use of thick brushwork and contrast of light and shadow, so effective in this painting, changed dramatically after 1830, when his palette became more subdued and his subject matter less radical.