The orignal painting after which the present enamel derives is by Emile-Jean Horace Vernet (1789-1863) and is signed and dated 1816. It is one of three portraits of Napoleon commissioned by Lord Kinnaird (1780-1826) and was sold Sotheby's, Paris, 27 June 2002, lot 135. The painting, which depicts Napoleon on horseback commemorates his return to Paris on 20 March 1815 from his exile on the island of Elba. One of the other Kinnaird commissions, depicting Napoleon in the uniform of the chasseurs-à-cheval de la Garde is in the National Gallery, London (inv. no. NG 1285).
The preparatory drawing by Henry Bone for the present portrait, dated 1817 and inscribed 'after Vernet' and 'Napole[ ] Bonaparte', is in the National Portrait Gallery, London (inv. no. NPG D17692).
A further preparatory drawing of Napoleon after François Pascal Simon, Baron Gérard (1770-1837) is in the National Portrait Gallery, London (inv. no. NPG D177776) and R. Walker, op. cit., records its corresponding enamel by Henry Pierce Bone, signed and dated 1849, on p. 337, no. 375. The original by Gérard is in the collection of the Duke of Wellington and a number of enamel copies by Henry Pierce Bone are listed in the Henry Pierce Bone auctions at Christie's in the 19th century.
A portrait miniature on paper of Napoleon on horseback by Vernet, within an emblematic surround painted by Eugène Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc (1814-1879) is in the Wallace Collection, London (inv. no. M313).