# Portrait of Prince Louis Napoléon Bonaparte

The original marble work has been kept at the Musée d'Orsay since 1930. Before that, it belonged to Empress Eugenie, at her home in Farnborough. The statue on display at the Palais des Beaux Arts in Lille is one of the many plaster models produced to distribute the work throughout the Empire.

Taking the same form as the original statue, the plaster represents a child accompanied by his dog, and its composition, especially the child's pose, is modeled on François-Joseph Bosio's sculpture of Henri IV as a child.

François-Joseph Bosio, Henri IV enfant, 1828,
bronze, 123x44cm, Pau, musée national du château de Pau
credit: (C) GrandPalaisRmn (Château de Pau) / René-Gabriel Ojeda
Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux, Le Prince impérial et son chien Néro, 1865,
marble, 140x65,4x61,5cm, Paris, Musée d'Orsay
credit: (C) GrandpalaisRmn (Musée d'Orsay) / Michel Urtado

Carpeaux knew the Prince well, as he was his sculpture teacher. That's why he chose to depict him faithfully.

André Adolphe Eugène Disdéri,
Napoléon Eugène Bonaparte in 1864, 1864
Source : Versailles39, 2007 via Wikicommons
license : public domain