The collector who bought the bust of a then-anonymous man found himself with a sculpture of a young Napoleon Bonaparte made by a famous artist, announced the auction house Sotheby's, which will offer it at an auction on July 5 in London.
Sotheby's estimates the work at between £120.000 and £180.000 (€138.000 and €208.000).
"The bust was bought by its current owner in 2020, and it was simply described as a bust of an anonymous person," the auction house stated, adding that the findings of experts determined that it was Napoleon, who was 28 years old at the time.
The white marble bust with a black marble plinth is the work of Giuseppe Franchi, a neoclassical sculptor.
"The identity of both the sculptor and the model can be confirmed today thanks to the research carried out by Olivier Ihl, professor of historical sociology and honorary director of the Institute of Political Studies in Grenoble and one of the experts of the period," says Sotheby's.
According to the scholar, Bonaparte commissioned the bust during a dinner with Franki in May 1797 in Milan, a few days after the fall of the Venetian Republic.
The young general will see the sculpture in November 1797 in Geneva, a city annexed by France in April 1798. The work will remain there for 20 years.
In August 1818, that unwanted bust of the deposed emperor, imprisoned on the island of Saint Helena, was bought at a low price by a British man who transferred the sculpture to Great Britain.
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