Step-brother of Giacomo Casanova, the famous Venetian adventurer and memoirist and François-Joseph Casanova, the battle painter, Alexandre Dufay was a pupil of Jacques-Louis David and a favorite of Napoleon's Director-General of Museums, the powerful Dominique Vivant Denon (1747-1825). Most of Dufay's surviving works were produced under Denon's patronage, including his most famous painting, a depiction of the Marriage Banquet of Napoleon and Maria-Luisa in the 'Salle de Spectacle'of the Tuileries Palace (Château de Fontainbleau; Salon of 1812).