Man in Oriental Costume in the Artist’s Studio  1826

Most of Leprince’s sitters seem to have been more or less like the painter himself—elegant Parisians of the middle class. The identity of the model depicted here and the circumstances that brought him into the artist’s studio are unknown, but beginning with Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt in 1798, French artists from Girodet to Gericault had relished the opportunity to paint ...