Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte - Aquarelle du Prince Impérial [Provenance : Famille Corvisart] - 1865

Superb watercolor of the Imperial Prince, known as Louis-Napoléon (1856-1879) , only son of Napoleon III, Emperor of the French, and his wife, Empress Eugénie.
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Work depicting colorful birds grabbing berries, probably made around the age of 10
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On double sheet measuring 38 x 24 cm
Good condition - slightly creased paper
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*****
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The Imperial Prince found, at the age of twenty-three, a glorious death under the assegais of Zulu warriors. The troop had stopped near the Imbazani River, fifty kilometers from Dundee, when their attackers emerged from the tall grass.
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A few minutes earlier, Louis-Napoléon was making his last drawings: topographical surveys for the installation of a future camp. Throughout his short life, he left sketches that were less reckless and of a completely different kind, he who had been passionate about the visual arts from a very young age. Every moment of respite gave him the opportunity to reproduce with confident strokes the scenes discussed in the Emperor's salon.
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The surviving drawings of the Prince Imperial often depict scenes of war: boats filled with soldiers, cannonballs in mid-flight or bayonets held above the shoulders. Here, the subject is completely different and seems to face the battlefields. The young Louis-Napoléon wanted to represent three birds perched on branches to create a calm and almost dreamy work.
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Provenance: Corvisart family. The Corvisart family has accumulated over the decades a quantity of priceless “memories” about the First and Second Empire, in particular thanks to Jean-Nicolas Corvisart, personal physician to Napoleon I. Died in 1821 without children, it was his great-nephew, Lucien Corvisart, who perpetuated the tradition and was the doctor of Napoleon III, attached to the Emperor and the imperial family. "
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