It is taken from the original 1816 painting by Claude Joseph Vernet, which renders the erstwhile emperor in full length on a white horse.
By the time the miniature was completed, Napoleon’s supporters were working to rehabilitate him and distribute reminders of him in engraved form. Lord Byron published Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte and Stendhal began his Vie de Napoléon.
Bone was the enamel painter to three successive British monarchs. His preliminary drawing for the miniature is in the National Portrait Gallery and is thought to have been made from one of the works in the collection of Charles Kinnaird. Rendered on copper, the work is inscribed and signed on the reverse.
Ellison Fine Art’s summer selling exhibition takes place on Wednesday, June 26 from 11am-8pm at The Royal Thames Yacht Club in Knightsbridge, coinciding with the preview day of Masterpiece.
