After the 1807 campaign, the Ministry of War had the water-colours depicting the battles of the Italian Campaign taken to Fontainebleau, where they were exhibited in the gallery of the chateau.  At the same time it commissioned a catalogue that was printed in a thousand copies.  In 1807, when Bonaparte saw the beauty of the first battle print, which was in black and white and executed by Dego, he ordered all Bagetti's works to be printed for the Cabinet du ministre de la Guerre.  This was due to the fact that despite their use as propaganda tools, the water-colours still had tactical use.  When they were made between 1800 and 1807 they depicted sites that were still battlefields or which were potential battlefields.  The documents used by the artists to make works for public view were secret as is shown very clearly by the instructions of the General Staff 'remis et sp�cialement recommand�s � la surveillance du chef de Brigade, charg� du lev� de la carte d'Italie' who 'est expressement recommand� de ne communiquer � personne l'expos� sommaire de la bataille et les d�tails donn�s sur les combats'.

The collection of the D�p�t de la Guerre was considerably extended by the 'July Monarchy', thanks to the industry of its director, the general Baron Pelet, who continued the historical work that was started when he was a captain of the geographical engineers.  He commissioned depictions of the Revolutionary wars and those of the Empire.  Later, towards 1830, two other French painters, Parent and Morel, were commissioned to continue painting the Italian battles and to make copies.

In 1834, General Pelet tried in vain to prevent some of the paintings of the D�p�t de la Guerre from being transferred to the new Mus�e historique de Versailles, which was created by Louis Phillipe, who in 1837 provided funding for printing a collection of the view of the champs de bataille de Napol�on in Italy between the years 1795 and 1800 by Bagetti, Lejeune, Parent, Morel, Gautier, Vernet, Cadolle, Genet and Comba, who were all military water-colour artists.

The next year, the general Baron Pelet decided to have accurate copies made of most of the works transferred to Versailles.  Whilst a large part depict the Italian Campaign, the rest depict the great battles of the Revolution and of the Empire.  Another series was painted upon the orders of Pelet and bears vivid witness to the conquest of Algeria.  The increase in paintings was essentially due to two artists, Th�odore Jung and Gaspard Gobaut.  It reached its zenith under General Pelet.  Nevertheless, under the Second Empire his successors remained faithful to the spirit of the collection and commissioned oil paintings and water-colours that depicted the great battles of the Crimea, Italy and Mexico.

For the whole of the eighteenth century the collection was a reference to artists, politicians and soldiers.  It was only at the end of the century that the tradition of water-colours was gradually lost as they were increasingly replaced by photographs, although some artists at the D�p�t de la Guerre like Pierre Comba and Louis Trinquier still continued to use water-colours throughout the 1880s.  In 1897, some of the works were stored at the mus�e de l'Arm�e, and form part of the pictures displayed in this museum.

After the two world wars some artist officers contributed their drawings to the collection that was kept by the Service historique de l'arm�e de Terre, the successor to the D�p�t de la Guerre.  From 1943 to 1945, Jouanneau Irri�r  was the last official war artist to paint the armies on active service.  Today, the Collection is still in the care of the Ministry of Defence and continues to increase thanks to the acquisition of contemporary or older works of art.

Currently, the 'collection des tableaux du ministre de la D�fense' contains about 3500 pictures, most of which are unknown to the public.  For this reason, they are about to be catalogued and some of them will be restored.  Last year, the author and the personnel of the section symbolique of the S.H.A.T. selected some of these pictures for the 'La libert� en Italie' exhibition which was held at the Chateau of Vincennes from 6 June to 13 October 1996.