This official portrait pleased Napoléon so much that he rewarded the artist with 6000 francs. A year later Goubaud was commissioned to draw a pendant portait of the Empress Marie-Louise in the same allegorical guise, now in an American private collection.

The iconography is close to David's imperial portait of 1805, the main difference being the extended gesture of the hand in a sign of peace.

The importance of this portrait lies in its technique. Goubaud, born in Rome and a student of Gaspere Landi was in 1810 appointed professor at the Lycée Charlemagne, one of the new institutions opened by Napoléon throughout the country to promote higher education. Goubaud's principal aim in the present drawing was to display the advantages of the new technique of artificial black lead pencil called crayon conté, nemed after its inventor Nicolas-Jacques Conté.

As a loyal supporter of the Emperor Goubaud was honored with the title of maitre de dessin du Roi de Rome. In 1815 he followed King Joseph to America and remained there until 1830 when he decided to make a trip to Vienna in the hope of convincing the King of Rome, then Duke of Reichstadt, to claim the throne of France.