Louis XV, King of France and his wife, Maria Leszczyńska

oils on canvas (2)

41 x 32 cm.

in frame 53 x 44 cm.

It is easy to identify the sitters of this charming pair of portraits in the rulers of France, namely Louis XV of Bourbon, who ascended the throne in 1715 at the age of just thirteen and was nicknamed the 'Beloved', and Maria Leszczyńska, Queen Consort of France and Navarre and daughter of the King of Poland Stanislaus I.

The queen is depicted in a three-quarter-length figure, her face smiling and turned towards the spectator. She wears a wig in shades of grey with her hair gathered around the nape of her neck and a diadem on her head, and pendants on her ears. She wears a dress with a wide neckline made of red velvet, brocaded with gold threads, with rich lace sleeves, and a bodice adorned with a jewelled bodice of diamonds and pearls. On the shoulders rests a blue velvet mantle embroidered with the heraldic fleurs-de-lis of the Crown of France and covered with ermine.

The monarch, also immortalised in three-quarter view, wears a cuirass over a coat, with a blue sash over his shoulder and a white collar around his neck. The face bears the same soothing expression that illuminates the face of his consort.

It is assumed that these portraits are a derivation of a pair of official paintings of the sovereigns most probably executed by Jean-Baptiste van Loo (1684-1745), prototypes that are traditionally dated to the year of the wedding, 1725, and of which several replicas of a smaller format are known.

Similar features of the monarchs can be seen in paintings by contemporaries, such as in canvases by Charles Van Loo (Collections of the Palace of Versailles, Salon de Mars), Jean Marc Nattier (Muzeum Narodowe, Warsaw), Alexis-Simon Belle (Trianon). We can mention another painter who devoted himself to such subjects, namely Pierre Gobert (Fontainebleau 1662 - Paris 1744), whose portraiture shows close stylistic affinities with our two portraits.

One of the most significant and in-demand portrait painters of his time and a great interpreter of the French school, working in France at the courts of Louis XIV and later Louis XV, he obtained a large number of commissions during his career, with a volume of work that implied the existence of a complex workshop: it is therefore plausible to assume that these works were executed by one of his direct and faithful collaborators.

The pair of works is presented in a good state of preservation, with beautiful carved and gilded wooden frames, also in excellent condition.