Prosper D'Epinay, 1836-1914

Private collection, Europe

Patricia Roux-Foujols, Prosper d'Épinay: Un sculpteur mauricien à la cour des princes, Ile Maurice, 1996, pp.57,104-105

There is a large chip to the back corner of the base measuring approx. 3.5 by 5cm and a series of minor chips running along the bottom of the base. There is discolouration to the veil. The plinth with minor chips as expected with age.
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The offered bust portrait of Maria Feodorovna represents the Empress in her full court-dress wearing a sash and a Star of the Order of St. Catherine, a tiara imitating a Russian kokoshnik with a veil and pearl and diamond jewellery. The original portrait was painted by Ivan Kramskoy in 1882 after the birth of her sixth child, Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna. 

Prosper d'Épinay was born in Mauritius in 1836, the son of the prominent lawyer and politician, Adrien d'Épinay. In 1857 he moved to Paris to study caricature under the sculptor Jean-Pierre Dantan, and, from 1861, he worked in Rome for Luigi Amici. A British subject, he worked in London during the 1860's and 70's, and, despite eventually settling in Paris, he continued to exhibit at the Royal Academy in London until as late as 1881.

At the height of his popularity in the 1880s he received several commissions from Alexander III and his brothers, Grand Dukes Sergei, Pavel and Alexei, and several of his works are in the collection of the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg. In one of his letters dated 20^th February 1887 he writes: "I was commissioned by the Emperor to make a bust of the Empress. He would like it to act as pendant to the one of his mother". Two versions are known to exist one in plaster and one in marble. The plaster bust is preserved in the family of the artist, but the whereabouts of the marble one were unknown until now.