This painting is a copy, by Mary Curtis, of an original portrait by Franz Xaver Winterhalter which is now lost, as is its companion painting of the Empress Eugénie, also copied by Curtis (RCIN 402021). The originals were in Paris. They also appear to have been hung in the French Embassy in London for a ball there in May 1854. Mary Curtis was commissioned to copy them in December 1855. Napoleon III was the nephew of Napoleon I, son of Hortense Beauharnais and Louis Napoleon. He was brought up in exile. He became President of the Second Republic in 1848 and was proclaimed Emperor in 1852. After a disastrous defeat in the Franco-Prussian War, followed by a period of imprisonment, he joined his family in England at Chislehurst. Queen Victoria was fascinated by him: she wrote ‘he is a very extraordinary man, with great qualities there can be no doubt – I might almost say a mysterious man…with a power of fascination, the effect of which upon all those who become more intimately acquainted with him is most sensibly felt’. The Emperor is dressed in military uniform and wearing the ribbon, collar and star of the Legion of Honour. His state robe is lined with ermine and he holds the Main de Justice in his hand.