File:Füger - Marie Therese, Madame Royale.png

English: Portrait of Marie-Thérèse, Duchess of Angoulême (1778-1851), daughter of Louis XVI of France

English: "This miniature was acquired in September 2011 at one of German provincial auction houses.

Clearly signed: "Füger /23 April", this large and exceedingly qualitative work of great Viennese portraitist Heinrich Friedrich Fueger turned out to be not only an extremely important addition to published in 2009 Fueger's Catalogue Raisonné by Dr. Robert Keil, but also a thus far entirely unknown (and possibly the most important of all sitter's miniature portraits) representation of 17-19-year-old Princess Marie Therese Charlotte de France, daughter of executed in Paris Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. Besides the obvious physiognomic likeness to her depictions in other known portraits (including those by Fueger; see our images nr.17-19 and nr.39-45), we see here another very important detail pointing us to this very person - it is the (thrown atop an armchair) blue velvet mantle embroidered with Bourbon fleur-de-lys (lilies) and adorned with royal ermine (images nr.8-9). Marie Therese could have sat for this portrait only in the period between January 1796 and May 1799, i.e. during her 3.5-year-long stay in Vienna. She came to this city on January 9th 1796, twenty-two days after her release from the Temple (she spent over three years in this Parisian prison: first, with her whole family, and later, alone - as its only surviving member; on December 18th 1795 Marie Therese was liberated - she was exchanged for Nicolas Marie Quinette, Baron de Rochemont (CLICK HERE), who was until then detained by Austrians). It is known that Fueger portrayed Marie Therese six times during her aforementioned 3.5-year-long stay in Vienna. He painted oil on canvas portrait of her (see image nr.17), as well as five others - all evidently portrait miniatures. Our miniature is one of the three thus far unknown miniatures (out of these five). Marie Therese looks here somewhat older as in her other portrait in our possession (executed by Johann Maria Monsorno; see our web # 36562). It means that this miniature was made shortly before Marie Therese's left Austria. "23 April" (see signature) could well refer to "23 April 1799", i.e. ten days preceding her departure on May 2nd 1799 (this date marked the commencement of her voyage to Mitau (then Russian town in the province Courland; now Yelgava in Latvia), where she was awaited by her fiancé, Louis Antoine Duke of Angouleme (son of Comte d'Artois and, respectively, her first cousin).

Similarly, it means that our other miniature portrait of Marie Therese (our web # 36562 ) was painted 2-3 years earlier, probably shortly after her arrival to Vienna, i.e. in the early 1796."