Élisabeth Charlotte d'Orléans, "Mademoiselle de Chartres"
1680 - 1682. Oil on canvas.On display elsewhere
Élisabeth Charlotte de Orléans (Saint Cloud, 09/13/1676 - Commercy, 12/23/1744), known as "Madame de Chartres" (since her brother, the future regent, before inheriting the title of Duke of Orléans took that of "Duke of Chartres" and she by extension, having no title, received that of "Mademoiselle de Chartres"). She was the daughter of Philip I of Orléans (brother of Louis XIV of France) (P2369) and of Élisabeth Charlotte of the Palatinate, Duchess of Bavaria. Ggranddaughter of Luis XIII and Ana de Austria, by paternal line, and of the palatal elector Karl I Ludwig and Charlotte of Hesse-Kassel, by the maternal line. She held the title of Duchess of Lorraine, because of her marriage to Duke Leopold Joseph, after whose death she would act as regent of Lorraine. Painted between 1680 and 1682. It is paired with the portrait of his brother (P2288). There are two replicas, one with variants in the Museum of the Palace of Versailles (MV 7387) and another in a private collection.
This canvas is one of a group of portraits collected by María Luisa de Orleans (1662-1689), first wife of Carlos II of Spain, which would become part of the Royal Collection. Some of these paintings must have decorated the Queen´s Gallery in the Alcázar (Madrid), a representation space where the Queen launched a decorative and iconographic program of exaltation of her dynasty. Others would be portraits of smaller relatives, generally of bust, that the sovereign would receive as a gift from them and that would decorate the private rooms of her room.
Puerto Mendoza, Eduardo, Una serie de retratos de escuela francesa del Museo del Prado en relación con la colección de María Luisa de Orleans: sugerencias y precisiones. Philostrato. Revista de Historia y Arte, 2018, p.5-32 [18]
