This portrait was painted with a companion portrait of the Empress Eugénie (RCIN 404518). The artist probably collaborated with John Frederick Herring, as in the similar portraits of Queen Victoria (RCIN 405278) and Prince Albert (RCIN 405279), with Boutibonne painting the figures and Herring the horses. The Emperor is wearing the uniform of a General of a division of the French army, with the ribbon and star of the Legion of Honour and badges of the Legion of Honour and the Médaille Militaire. In the distance is a view of Paris. Changes have been made to the position of the neck and hind legs of the horse. Napoleon III was the nephew of Napoleon I and was brought up in exile, coming to power in December 1848 as President of the Second Republic. In 1852 he was proclaimed Emperor, and after a disastrous defeat in the Franco-Prussian war, followed by a period of imprisonment, he joined his family in England. Queen Victoria wrote of him in a letter ‘That 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’. Signed and dated: 'E Boutibonne 1856'. Inscribed on the back with the names of the artist and sitter and the date, 1856. On the top of the stretcher for the canvas is an inscription with the artist’s name and address, 9 Coffee House, Ludgate Hill.