Jean-étienne Liotard - Portrait Of Louise Of France - Oil On Canvas

Oil on canvas on its original stretcher (62 × 51 cm visible), presented in a 19th-century carved and gilded wooden frame. Very elegant portrait of "Madame Louise", eighth daughter of King Louis XV and Queen Marie Leszczyńska. Born in 1737 in Versailles, she grew up with her sisters at the prestigious Fontevraud Abbey before joining the court at the age of 13. The king affectionately nicknamed her "Chiff" (meaning tender, delicate), contrary to what is known of her very capricious and temperamental nature. She used her strong character to fend off the king's and diplomats' attempts to marry her off to suitable matches, notably in 1766 with Emperor Joseph II of the Holy Roman Empire. As early as 1748, when Louise, aged 11, was still at Fontevraud Abbey, rumors circulated that her father intended Prince Charles Edward, the Stuart pretender to the English throne, for her. Madame Louise then declared: "Have I not reason to be very worried, since a husband is being chosen for me, when I desire no other than Jesus Christ?" This very beautiful portrait was painted around 1750 by the master of his time, Jean-Étienne Liotard. Painting both the powerful and the humble, this eccentric and versatile artist traveled from Rome to Constantinople, then Paris, London, and Amsterdam. A painting of Madame Louise's sister, Marie-Adélaïde of France (1753, oil on canvas), is in Florence, at the Uffizi Gallery. The museums of Amsterdam, Bern, and Geneva are rich in examples of his works. In Paris, the Louvre Museum holds 42 of his pastels, and in London, the Victoria and Albert Museum. To the great surprise of the court and against the king's wishes, Madame Louise wanted to enter the "poorest Carmelite convent in France," that of Saint-Denis. She abandoned the pomp and depravity of the court and took the habit in 1770. She consented to this sacrifice in order to "atone for the sins of her father." She died suddenly in 1787, according to some accounts, as a result of poisoning. The Revolution drove her dynasty from the throne and persecuted religious orders. In 1793, revolutionaries who desecrated the tombs of the French kings in the Basilica of Saint-Denis also came to the cemetery of her Carmelite convent, located around the cloister, to exhume her body and throw it into the common grave with the remains of the royal family. Pope Pius IX initiated her cause for beatification on June 19, 1873. That same year, he declared Mother Teresa of Saint Augustine "Venerable." The beatification of Mother Teresa of Saint Augustine was resumed in Rome on December 13, 1985, as a historical cause for canonization according to the new procedure. An association was founded in January 1986 to support this cause for beatification. The decrees on the heroic virtues of Teresa of Saint Augustine were published on December 18, 1997. To date, only one officially recognized miracle attributed to Mother Teresa of Saint Augustine is needed for the Church to officially declare her "Blessed."