The Duchess of Berry

The painting shows Marie-Caroline, Duchess of Berry, presented as a fashionable lady of the period. She holds a quizzing glass, an accessory that marks her as a figure of elegant society, while her dress and hat reinforce an urbane image that feels more at home in a drawing room than at a formal court. The artist, Thomas Lawrence, was then Britain's most sought-after portraitist and served as President of the Royal Academy in London. He had travelled to France at the request of George IV to paint Charles X, and after seeing his likenesses of the king and of the eldest son, the Duke of Angoulême, the Duchess asked him to paint her.

The portrait belongs to a delicate moment. After her husband's assassination in 1820, she gave birth to a son, Henri, who seemed to secure the succession of the Bourbons. The July Revolution of 1830 sent the family into exile, and in 1832 she made an unsuccessful attempt to land in France and put her son on the throne. The picture thus preserves the image of a woman who, for a time, carried her family's dynastic hopes.

Painter

Thomas Lawrence

Date

1825

Medium

oil paint, canvas

Dimensions

91 × 71 cm

Museum

Musée de l'Histoire de France, Versailles

Genre

portrait

Depicts

dress, Princess Maria Carolina, Duchess of Berry, hat

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