Unusual: The sculpture of an unknown person is, in fact, a sculpture of the young Napoleon.

A collector who bought the bust from an anonymous person ended up with a sculpture of a young Napoleon Bonaparte by the famous artist, he said on Friday. Sotheby’s Offeror to sell in London on July 5. The name of the seller and the price at which he bought the item have not been disclosed. But the auction house estimates the work at between 120,000 and 180,000 pounds (approximately 140,000 and 210,000 francs).

“It was acquired by its current owner in 2020 and is described as an early 19th century bust of an anonymous man in the Empire style,” the house explained in a press release. An expert report determined that he was the victorious 28-year-old general from Corsica from the Italian campaign of 1797. The white marble work, on a black marble base, is signed by Italian Neoclassical sculptor Giuseppe Franchi.

“The identification of both the sculptor and the model is confirmed today by the research of 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,” writes Sotheby’s again. According to the scholar, May 1797, a few days after bringing about the fall of the Venetian Republic. Bonaparte commissioned the bust during a dinner with the French in Milan, and the young general would see the sculpture in November 1797 in the city of Geneva, annexed to France in April 1798. The work would remain there for twenty years.

In August 1818, this unloved bust of the deposed emperor, held by the British on the island of Saint Helena, was bought for a low price (80 Louis d’Or) by a Briton, who transported it to the United Kingdom. The sculpture was “neglected, embarrassed after the fall of the empire, seen as worthless, and finally disappeared without a trace for two centuries,” Sotheby’s sculpture expert Christopher Mason was quoted as saying in the press release.

The style of the bust is reminiscent of the unclothed upper part of Rome in the 1st century BC. Napoleon wore a medium-length hair style known at the time as a dog’s ear hairstyle.