The Trajanic colonne de la Grande Armée in the Place Vendôme, Paris, was designed about 1805 under the direction of Dominique-Vivent Denon, using the bronze from 1250 cannons taken from the Russian and Austrian armies after the French victory at the Battle of Austerlitz in 1803.
The column was originally surmounted by a statue of Napoleon as a Roman Emperor, with crowned laurel wreath, and holding a globe in one hand, surmounted by a statue of Victory. During the Restauration, the statue was replaced by a figure of Napoleon representing the Emperor re-clothed in a raincoat and sporting his famous bicorn hat.

The here offered reduction is a version of the model by the medal-artist Nicolas-Guy-Antoine Brenet (d.1846), exhibited in 1834. (M. Grewenig, Napoleon, Stuttgart, 1998, pp. 168-169.)