It depicts the Italian-born French royal
Marie-Caroline, Duchess of Berry, the widowed daughter-in-law of the reigning French monarch
Charles X. A few months after the assassination of her husband the
Duke of Berry in 1820, she gave birth to a child
Henri who seemed to secure the succession for the
House of Bourbon. Lawrence was
President of the Royal Academy in
London and Britain's most fashionable portrait painter. He was commissioned by
George IV to travel to France to paint Charles X the year of his
Coronation in Rheims. While in the country he also painted the king's eldest son
Louis Antoine, Duke of Angoulême. Impressed by the depictions of her father and brother-in-law, Berry secured his services for a portrait. He depicts her as a lady of
fashion, holding a
quizzing glass. After the
July Revolution that sent the Bourbons into exile, the Duchess launched an unsuccessful landing in 1832 in an attempt to place her son on the throne. Today the painting is in the collection of the
Palace of Versailles. ==See also==