Karl KLIC (1841-1926). "Plon-Plon the Red Prince!... Lot 44

Karl KLIC (1841-1926). "Plon-Plon the Red Prince! ", 1869. Charcoal and watercolor signed and dated lower left. 37 x 29 cm. Napoleon-Jérôme Bonaparte (1822-1891), son of Jérôme Bonaparte, brother of Napoleon and king of Westphalia. French prince, imperial highness and senator in 1852, general of division in 1853, president of the Universal Exhibition of 1855, then minister of Algeria and the Colonies from 1858 to 1859, Napoleon Jérôme was an important figure in the imperial family during the Second Empire. He embodied the left wing - anticlerical and democratic - of the Bonapartist movement against a conservative and authoritarian right wing led by Eugène Rouher, his rival, but this tendency, represented by the "Palais-Royal group" - which included the journalists Émile de Girardin and Adolphe Guéroult, as well as the Saint-Simonian François Barthélemy Arlès-Dufour - concerned only a minority of the Bonapartist party. During the Crimean War, he bravely commanded a division at the battle of Alma, but because of disagreements with General Canrobert, he decided to return to France before the end of the conflict, which earned Plon-Plon the treacherous nickname of "Craint-plomb".