"The Little Prince"

Between the lion cub and the lion, grace does not disappear — it transforms into majesty. At this age, everything is still open — curiosity prevails over wariness, and those golden eyes look at the world without yet knowing that they will end up making it their domain. In every clumsy movement, every yawn too large for its still-small mouth, the predator it will become is already visible.

The title imposed itself naturally. Not only because this cub is the son of a king — but because it embodies something universal that Saint-Exupéry captured so well: that way of being fully present, without calculation or defence, of seeing the world with fresh eyes. Lion cubs, like children, have not yet learned to pretend.

For the composition, I chose to approach as closely as possible. The tight framing is no accident: I wanted us to be face to face with it, almost at the level of its gaze, unable to avoid that presence. No distancing, no savanna as a backdrop — just it, that gaze, and that fur, still soft, that has not yet taken on its definitive colour.

Oil paint, worked in the hyperrealist tradition, attaches itself here to seizing the infinite nuances of this ochre and tawny coat, the light playing on the small, still-uncertain tufts, this transitional mantle between childhood and the majesty to come. To paint Le Petit Prince was to fix the pre-reign — that suspended, fragile, and unrepeatable moment when a future king still observes the world with a child's eyes.