Buste de Charles III

Born on 8 December 1818, Charles III was Sovereign Prince of Monaco from 20 June 1856 until his death in 1889. Prince Charles III played an important role in asserting Monaco’s sovereignty by establishing diplomatic and consular relations, and giving the Principality its own national flag, a national honour in the form of the Order of Saint Charles, and an independent bishopric. He also took over the minting of coinage and issued the first postage stamp in the Principality’s history, in 1885. During his reign, the towns of Menton and Roquebrune seceded from the Principality of Monaco and became part of France in 1861. It dealt a severe blow to the Monegasque economy.
Prince Charles III responded by turning the Principality into a tourist destination. He gave permission for the creation of a casino in Monaco, which opened in 1865 on a previously empty hill known as Les Spélugues. In 1866, the now thriving new district was renamed “Monte-Carlo” in honour of Charles III. Prince Charles III died on 10 September 1889 at the Château de Marchais, his home in northern France. Meusnier made several busts of Prince Charles III. The first was presented at the Universal Exhibition in Paris in 1863.
The copy produced in 1867 once stood on the Place du Palais. The statue was relocated in 1966 to celebrate the centenary of the creation of Monte-Carlo.

Mathieu Roland Meusnier, known as Mathieu-Meusnier, was a French sculptor and art collector born in 1824 in Paris. He began as a pupil of the painter Charles Desains, before being accepted to study at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1841, in the studio of Auguste Dumont. He first exhibited at the Salon in 1843, and was awarded a third class medal the following year. Mathieu-Meusnier worked for the Opéra de Paris and for the Louvre. He produced numerous portraits, busts, and medallions of various figures, including of Beaumarchais, Sainte Beuve and Sarah Bernhardt. He also made a statue of Napoleon Bonaparte. Mathieu-Meusnier died in Paris in 1896.