Queen Marie Louise of Orléans holding Roses in her right Hand
1650 - 1700. Oil on canvas.Not on display
Marie Louise of Bourbon-Orléans and Stuart (1662–1689) was the first wife of Charles II of Spain, whom she married in 1679. This portrait was probably painted shortly after her arrival at the Madrid court, given its similarity to another by José García Hidalgo datable to around 1679 and also in the Museo del Prado (P000652). The present work is a full-length image in which the French-born queen, already dressed in the Spanish fashion, is shown next to a large curtain and holding a small cluster of roses in her right hand. In contrast to the work by Hidalgo, in which Marie Louise wears the emblematic Habsburg jewel known as the joyel rico at her breast, here the symbolic reference to the Spanish monarchy takes the form of the bronze lion supporting the tabletop on which the queen rests her arm. In the barely ten years that Marie Louise lived in Spain, she assembled a collection of more than 150 paintings, of which a significant number were portraits. Twenty-one of these were exhibited in the Queen’s Gallery. Intended for the reception of official visits, this space had an iconographic programme that exalted her dynasty. Conceived with a clear political intent, this series of works, many of them now in the Museo del Prado, increased the presence and influence of the French school at the Spanish court.
