Prosper d'EPINAY Port-Louis, Mauritius, 1836 - Saint-Cyr-sur-Loire, 1914 Portrait of Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte (1856-1879), Prince Imperial White marble Signed 'P. d'Epinay' on the back Height: 34 cm (13.38 in.) Resting on a white marble pedestal bearing the number N Total height: 46.5 cm (18.31 in.) Portrait of Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, white marble, signed, by P. d'Epinay Comment: Born into a family of French origin from Mauritius that became English in 1814, the artist Prosper d'Epinay enjoyed a cosmopolitan and social career in Rome, London and Paris. He first studied in Paris with the portraitist and caricaturist Jean-Pierre Dantan, known as Dantan le Jeune, from 1857 to 1860. Like all artists of the time, he travelled to Italy to study, and in 1864 he settled in Rome, where he opened a studio that he kept until 1912. That same year, 1864, he also travelled to London, where he made a name for himself modelling the bust of the Princess of Wales. This success prompted him to move to Paris. In 1878, he also opened a studio there. As a member of the most prestigious Parisian and European circles, he produced many portraits influenced by eighteenth-century art. His works were exhibited at the Salon, but also at the Royal Academy from 1865 to 1878 and at the Cercle de l'Union Artistique from 1880 to 1914. He met with great success there, and was much appreciated by the European nobility, who commissioned numerous portraits and more decorative sculptures to adorn the palaces of the high aristocracy. His works can be found in Russian imperial collections and the Italian, French and English courts. Our marble falls into the latter category of commissions received by the sculptor. Those nostalgic for the Second Empire commissioned bust effigies of the Emperor and his wife, as well as that of their only son, a former star of the regime who tragically disappeared in 1879. We find the same decoration of an N crossed by a laurel branch on the busts commissioned by the Prince of Essling and delivered by the artist in 1899. Our bust, the only marble model in private hands, is known from two other, larger versions, currently in the Musée de Compiègne and the Musée Napoléon d'Arenenberg.