Portrait of Queen María Luisa as Princess of Asturias
Ca. 1765. Oil.On display elsewhere
Mengs had a profound influence on the younger generation of Spanish painters, notably on the Bayeus, Maella, Inza, Goya and Vicente López Portaña. His Neoclassical style was diametrically opposed to Tiepolo´s, whose style and paintings were falling out of fashion. The Spanish Collections hold many of his portraits. He was a refined and skyfull court painter with exquisite technique, enamel-bright colors, minutely detailed fabrics and jewelry, and flesh tones as fine and luminous as porcelain. This portrait is a copy of original, also owned by the Prado and traditionally dated circa 1765. It is believed to be the official portrait commissioned for the engagement of the Prince and Princess María Luisa. Though undocumented, this assumption is based on the fact that so many copies of this portrait exist. Aesthetically and technically it draws inspiration from Velázquez, especially in the positioning of the figure and his surrounding. Yet it lacks the magical touch found in Velázquez´s court portrait. María Luisa of Parma (Parma, 1751-Roma, 1819) was the daughter of Philip of Bourbon, Duke of Parma, and of Luisa Isabel of France. She married his cousin Charles, Prince of Asturias, the son of Charles III and María Amalia of Saxony in 1765. In 1788, he succeeded to the throne as Charles IV. He was overthrown in 1808 and exiled, with his wife, the Queen, to Rome, as a prisioner of Napoleon. Mengs emphasizes the volume of this figure by placing it squarely on the foreground, and backlighting it. The Princess´s refined air is the quintessence of the courtly spirit so typical of the ancient régime. Her portrait seems to have been painted in Aranjuez, as it depicts the land-scape behind the palace. A building can be seen in distance, beyond the greenery. This portrait was intended as a matched pair with the Portrait of King Charles IV as Prince of Asturias (P007130) (Text drawn from Luna Fernández, Juan J., The Majesty of Spain, Jackson, Mississippi, 2001, p. 70).
The Majesty of Spain. Royal collections from the Museo del Prado and the Patrimonio Nacional presented by The Mississippi Commission for International Cultural Exchange, Jackson, Mississipi Commission For International Cultural Exchange, 2001, p.70
