1892 portrait of a north African boy by Mathilde, Princess Bonaparte, $13,000 (£9690) at Doyle.
Commanding $13,000 (£9690) against a guide of $600-800, this portrait of a north African boy soundly bettered previous auction results, including the £1500 paid at Bonhams in October 2021 for an ink and wash portrait Mathilde painted of her famous uncle.
It was dated 1839, when she was just 20 years old and Napoleon Bonaparte had been dead for almost as long.
Mathilde was considerably older and settled in a comfortable existence in Paris when she created the work offered at Doyle. Measuring about 14 x 10in (35 x 24cm), it is signed and dated 1892, when she would have been 72.
Eccentric noble
“For a European noblewoman, she was eccentric,” said Elaine Banks Stainton, senior specialist in the paintings department at Doyle. “She lived with a lover, smoked cigarettes, spoke her mind frankly and was a serious artist who exhibited at the Salon in Paris. She also maintained a salon of artists, intellectuals and men of science frequented by such luminaries as Louis Pasteur, Gustave Flaubert and Emile Zola.”
We don’t know who the sitter of this picture is, but it seems likely that he is responsible for the record price. The princess chose to paint her handsome subject, dressed in a brown fez and a blue velvet jacket with yellow-gold embroidery, with considerable sensitivity and care.
“Serious, knowledgeable people who know the period well bid on it,” Stainton said. Bidding for the portrait – consigned by a collector in Palm Beach, Florida – opened at $4500, well above its guide. The winner was “a private individual in the US” bidding over the phone against “other competing buyers who were dealers”.
The sale took place on July 30.
