Charles Adrien Prosper d'Epinay

P. Roux-Foujols, Prosper d'Épinay: Un sculpteur mauricien à la cour des princes, Ile Maurice, 1996, pp. 88-89

Prosper d'Épinay modelled his bust of the young Princess of Wales from memory in 1865, having observed her at the theatre and at private receptions in London society. The daughter of the King of Denmark, Alexandra had married Albert Edward, Prince of Wales in 1863 and, as the future queen, began to receive considerable attention. It is said that d'Épinay received the help of his friend, Lord Carrington, to show the bust to its sitter; Carrington hosted a reception attended by the Prince and Princess during which he placed the clay model at the centre of the dining table. It proved an instant success and won d'Épinay the admiration of the future King Edward VII, who ordered versions of the bust to be made for Queen Victoria, the King of Denmark, and other members of the royal families.

This important bust is one of few known marble versions of this early portrait. Two versions are housed in the Royal Collection; the one given to Queen Victoria (inv. no. RCIN 36125), and one which was exhibited at the Royal Academy as the property of the Prince of Wales in 1868 (inv. no. RCIN 7629). The present bust was historically recorded in the artist’s family according to Roux-Foujols (op. cit., p. 89, where the bust is erroneously listed as being dated 1867). The artist’s family also preserved a plaster model, dated 1867. In a 1913 article on Prosper d'Épinay titled Le Sculpteur des Souveraines, d'Épinay’s beautiful portrait of the Princess is described as ‘ce buste charmant ou un sens exquis de la vie s’unit a un grand sentiment de l’elegance’ (‘this charming bust, in which an exquisite sense of life is merged with a great impression of elegance’). The delicately arranged Grecian drapery slipping from the Princess’s shoulders imbues d'Épinay’s essentially academic portrait with a sensuous classicism.

Having won the favour of her husband, Prosper d'Épinay created several other portraits of Princess Alexandra later in his career, including a bust depicting her in Renaissance dress, which is now in the Russell-Cotes Art Gallery in Bournemoth (SC64b BORGM), and a bust described as ‘half length’, which was shown at the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1878. Another bust, dated 1906, commissioned by the British Ambassador in Paris, shows Alexandra as Queen Consort.

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 was active in London during the 1860s and 1870s, and, despite eventually settling in Paris, he continued to exhibit at the Royal Academy in London until as late as 1881.