Portrait of Prosper Marilhat

Théodore Chassériau completed this portrait of fellow artist Prosper Marilhat in 1835, when Chassériau was just 16 years old. This achievement makes him one of the youngest painters ever represented in the Louvre. He exhibited the portrait at the following year's Salon alongside several other works that earned him a third-class medal.

The two young artists met around 1833 at a ball organized by a group of Romantic painters. Théophile Gautier later described how Chassériau and Marilhat both contributed decorations to the event. They formed a deep friendship that lasted until Marilhat's early death in 1847. When Chassériau's teacher Ingres left for Rome in 1834, the young artist began seeking connections among the Romantic generation.

Objects in the portrait, including an antique red-figure vase and an Egyptian basket, reference Marilhat's recent voyage to the Near East. Prosper Marilhat (1811–1847) was an Orientalist painter whose most successful works drew from sketches made during his time in Egypt in 1831–1832. The somber coloring and austere composition reflect Italian Renaissance portraiture and Spanish Golden Age masters.

The portrait remained in the Marilhat family collection, passing to Robert Marilhat and then to descendants who donated it to the Louvre in 1906. It represents the beginning of Chassériau's journey toward becoming a major Romantic painter in his own right.