Red wet stamp at the bottom left. Acquired in 1996, by the Bibliothèque nationale de France.
This portrait was probably made for the painter Thomas Couture (1815-1879), who had been commissioned to carry out a large format staging of the baptism of the heir to the Napoleonic throne, and for whom Le Gray also made several photographic portraits of the Empress Eugenie kneeling in prayer, in order to spare her the long hours of posing for the painter.