Sketch for "Reception of Emperor Napoleon III and Empress Eugénie by the Kabyle Leaders at Algiers on September 18, 1860"

Curatorial Overview

“A foremost painter of military subjects, Pils executed this compositional sketch in connection with a painting, nearly fifty feet in length, commemorating an 1860 visit by Napoleon III to Algeria, which had been conquered by France in 1830. The large canvas was commissioned for Versailles but its fate is unknown; it may have been destroyed in 1871, during the insurrection known as the Paris Commune.”