DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.45257#0446
264 FROM NICOLAS POUSSIN TO COROT
these appear to be copies of already existing
pictures the portrait of Marie Louise Josephine,
Queen of Etruria, shows special merits and seems
to be taken directly from life, probably during one
of Madame Le Brun’s tours in Italy. A strong
vitality is expressed in her beautiful face, forming a
marked contrast to the portrait of her mother, the
Queen of Naples. Madame Le Brun, who, in
spite of her sex became a member of the French
Academy, was one of Marie Antoinette’s favourite
painters. After the Revolution she established
herself in St. Petersburg and did not return to Paris
until 1801, when she was enthusiastically welcomed.
She painted many of the most celebrated beauties
of her day, but all these portraits seem to bear the
mark of a period then fast disappearing.
Louis Joseph de Bourbon, about 1787, com-
missioned Fragonard to paint small portraits of the
Princes and Princesses of the Royal House1 of
Bourbon and the House of Bourbon Conde. Among
these are portraits of the Dauphin Louis, son of
Louis XVI, and of the Due dEnghien by whose
tragic death the Conde family became extinct.
Fragonard was a pupil of both Boucher and
Chardin. He went to Italy with the Prix de Rome
and in 1765 was elected a member of the Academy.
He excelled in every style of painting—genre, land-
scape, portraits, interiors, and historical subjects.
When in 1765 he exhibited his Callirhoe and Coresus
(a subject taken from the poet Roy) Diderot and
1 These are exhibited in one of the rooms of the Petit Chateau.
these appear to be copies of already existing
pictures the portrait of Marie Louise Josephine,
Queen of Etruria, shows special merits and seems
to be taken directly from life, probably during one
of Madame Le Brun’s tours in Italy. A strong
vitality is expressed in her beautiful face, forming a
marked contrast to the portrait of her mother, the
Queen of Naples. Madame Le Brun, who, in
spite of her sex became a member of the French
Academy, was one of Marie Antoinette’s favourite
painters. After the Revolution she established
herself in St. Petersburg and did not return to Paris
until 1801, when she was enthusiastically welcomed.
She painted many of the most celebrated beauties
of her day, but all these portraits seem to bear the
mark of a period then fast disappearing.
Louis Joseph de Bourbon, about 1787, com-
missioned Fragonard to paint small portraits of the
Princes and Princesses of the Royal House1 of
Bourbon and the House of Bourbon Conde. Among
these are portraits of the Dauphin Louis, son of
Louis XVI, and of the Due dEnghien by whose
tragic death the Conde family became extinct.
Fragonard was a pupil of both Boucher and
Chardin. He went to Italy with the Prix de Rome
and in 1765 was elected a member of the Academy.
He excelled in every style of painting—genre, land-
scape, portraits, interiors, and historical subjects.
When in 1765 he exhibited his Callirhoe and Coresus
(a subject taken from the poet Roy) Diderot and
1 These are exhibited in one of the rooms of the Petit Chateau.