Charles X (1757–1836), King of France, after Gérard

Henry Bone's enamel Charles X of France after Gérard, completed in 1829, reproduces a portrait of the last Bourbon king of France painted by François Gérard, the leading portrait painter of the Empire and Restoration periods. Charles X (1757–1836), younger brother of Louis XVI and Louis XVIII, ascended the French throne in 1824 and was deposed in the July Revolution of 1830—making this 1829 portrait one of the last images made of him as reigning monarch. Gérard's imposing state portraits were the visual statements of Bourbon legitimacy, and Bone's enamel reproduction translated that grandeur into the intimate, portable format of the miniature. The commission reflects the continuing practice of enamel copies after famous oil originals as luxury diplomatic and gift objects.

Bone's reproduction of Gérard's stately Bourbon portraiture in enamel demonstrates his ability to work across different pictorial registers—from intimate watercolor miniatures to the monumental idiom of French academic state portraiture. The enamel surface gives the royal regalia—crown, ermine, decorations—a jewel-like materiality appropriate to the subject's majesty. Bone's technical precision in the face modeling maintains individual characterization within the ceremonial formality.