Léon Cogniet (1794-1880) began studying at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in 1812, where he became friendly with Théodore Géricault, Eugène Delacroix, Ary Scheffer and Henry Scheffer. He won the Prix de Rome in 1817 and in the same year made his Salon debut with Metabus, King of the Volscians (Chartres, Musée des Beaux-Arts), based on an incident from Livy. He first became successful with the neo-classical Marius on the Ruins of Carthage (1824; Toulouse, Musée Augustins), which was bought by the State for the Musée du Luxembourg. By 1831 the influence of Romanticism appeared to be gaining strength when he re-exhibited his Rebecca and Sir Brian de Bois Guilbert, but he soon afterwards developed an approach combining elements of the Classical and Romantic traditions. He decorated a ceiling in the Louvre with the Expedition to Egypt, in 1835, and he also decorated the Halle de Godiaque in the Hôtel de Ville, Paris. In 1830 he established a drawing studio for men and another, for women, directed by his sister Marie-Amélie. He was esteemed as a teacher at the Ecole Polytechnique, where he was a professor for sixteen years, and was regarded among the most popular professors at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts where he worked until 1863. In 1846 he was awarded the Légion d’honneur, and in 1849 he entered the Institut de France.

Louis Philippe, Crown Prince of Belgium (24 July 1833 – 16 May 1834) was the first-born child and heir-apparent of Leopold I of Belgium and his second wife, Princess Louise d'Orléans. He died in Laeken before his first birthday of an inflammation of the mucous membranes, and was buried in the royal crypt of the Church of Our Lady of Laeken.

This fanciful posthumous portrait conveys the idea of Heaven through pagan Classical references. The infant prince, wrapped in drapery, floats in a seashell with flowers, as if crossing the River Styx to gain the Elysian Fields. He will be greeted in the other side by two figures, one playing a harp, and will join the three children playing in the water with a swan. A photogravure print was produced based upon this painting; RCIN 506927.