Französisch, nach Van Loo

Marie-Thérèse-Raphaëlle, Infanta of Spain

Marie-Thérèse-Raphaëlle was a daughter of Philip V of Spain and his wife Elisabeth Farnese. In 1745 she married the son of Louis XV (cat.-nos. 2008-141, 2008-158), the Dauphin Louis (cat.-no.2008-159). This union achieved the much longed for conciliation between the two countries. ¹ On the 19th of July 1746 Marie-Thérèse-Raphaëlle gave birth to a daughter, Marie Thérèse. Three days later she died in the aftermath of childbed, her daughter died in 1748. Louis, who had been very devoted to his wife, mourned her for a long time.

The delicately painted miniature echoes in small fomat an oil painting by Louis Michel Van Loo, being presumably created in 1744 on the occasion of the sitter's engagement to the Dauphin in Aranjuez. ² The miniaturist copied from the full-length painting only the bust and moved the red curtain, which in Van Loo's painting is luxuriously billowing in the sitter's back, to the picture's margin. Instead he created a vista to the open air with blue sky and treetops.Thus the prestigious gravity of the full-length picture becomes more relaxed and intimate, more congenial to the format and the purpose of a miniature.

B.P.

¹ Louis XV did not succeed in this project, for his engagement to Marie-Anne-Victoire, the sister of Marie-Thérèse, was broken off. Already in 1739 he married his eldest daughter off to a son of Philip V (cf.cat-no.28).

² We are very grateful to Pierre Papeloux, who succeeded in identifying the sitter. Van Loo's painting is today located in Versailles.