Head and shoulders, facing three-quarters to the left, touching his collar of the Golden Fleece with his left hand; wearing 16th century costume with the badge of Garter around his neck; view of the Thames beyond.

The Prince of Wales was a great admirer of the actress Sarah Bernhardt, who visited London in 1879 (see RCIN 7275). She had promised a sitting to the young Bastien-Lepage and probably encouraged the Prince to do likewise.

The commission proved problematic. The Prince sat to the artist seven times at Marlborough House in July 1879. Bastien-Lepage wrote to a friend: ‘He poses badly, but I believe that the portrait is going well, he appears happy and interested in my work’. A further six sittings took place in Paris in March 1880. There followed a dispute as to whether Bastien-Lepage had presented the portrait to the Princess of Wales. The Princess seemed to have owned it until 1885 when following its exhibition in Paris, it was claimed by the dead artist’s brother.

Both the Prince’s and Bernhardt’s portraits were exhibited in London in the 1880. The Times critic described that of the Prince as ‘a fantaisie’ and an artist recalled that ‘it has the air of a Holbein’. In size, inscription and in the precision of handling of the figure, the portrait is greatly indebted to 16th century models, and may have been intended to draw parallels with Holbein’s well known portraits of Henry VIII (see RCIN 404438).

Text adapted from Princes as Patrons, London, 1998