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[Napoleon III and the Prince Imperial]

Creator

French Photographer · 1822–1913

Daguerreotypist

In 1844 Pierre-Louis Pierson began operating a studio in Paris that specialized in hand-colored daguerreotypes. In 1855 he entered into a partnership with Léopold Ernest and Louis Frédéric Mayer, who also ran a daguerreotype studio. The Mayers had been named "Photographers of His Majesty the Emperor" by Napoleon III the year before Pierson joined them. Although the studios remained at separate add

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Date: about 1859
Medium: Albumen silver print from a wet collodion glass negative
Culture: French
Department: Photographs
Institution: Getty Museum

The Prince Imperial, son of Napoleon III, sits strapped securely into a seat on his horse's back, a model subject for the camera. An attendant at the left steadies the horse so that the little prince remains picture-perfect in the center of the backdrop erected for the photograph. The horse stands upon a rug that serves as a formalizing element, making the scene appear more regal. The Emperor Napoleon III himself stands off to the right in perfect profile, supervising the scene with his dog and forming a framing mirror-image of the horse and attendant on the other side. Pierre-Louis Pierson placed his camera far enough back from the Prince to capture the entire scene and all the players, but this was not the version sold as a popular *carte-de-visite.* The *carte-de-visite* image was cropped so that only the Prince upon his horse was visible.

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