French School

This double portrait in all probability shows the brother and sister Louis Alexandre de Bourbon and his sister, Louise Marie Adélaïde de Bourbon. The two were the only surviving children of seven born to the Duc de Penthièvre and Princess Maria Teresa Felicity of Modena. Their parents were descended from the French royal family – as their father was the only legitimate child of Louis Alexandre de Bourbon, the youngest (legitimised) son of King Louis XIV and his mistress, Madame de Montespan. Their mother was also a descendent of Madame de Montespan, daughter of the Duke of the Modena and related to the House of Orleans.

This miniature, which shows Louis at around the age of eighteen and his sister at twelve/ thirteen, precedes the complex and dramatic lives which followed their adulthood and subsequent marriages. The siblings can be seen together in the painting by Jean-Baptiste Charpentier the Elder (1728–1806), showing brother and sister with their parents drinking chocolate (now Musée de l'Histoire de France, Château de Versailles). The motif of the basket of flowers, gently arranged by Marie-Adélaïde, can also be seen in the portrait of her with her father in a garden (also now Musée de l'Histoire de France, Château de Versailles).

Louis was to marry two years after the probable date of this miniature in 1767. As the heir to the enormous Penthièvre fortune, Louis enjoyed a hedonistic lifestyle. In an attempt to curb his son’s wild ways, Louis’ bride was chosen as the pious Maria Luisa of Savoy. Unfortunately, the proposed change of lifestyle came too late, and Louis died of venereal disease at the age of twenty, having sold his new wife’s diamonds to pay his mounting debts.

Louis’ sister, Louise (known for most of her life as ‘Marie-Adélaïde’), was born six years later than her brother. Her mother died the year after her birth after complications arising from the delivery of her seventh child, a boy, who also died a day later. After a conventional convent education, she left at the age of twelve to begin preparations for what her father hoped would be an advantageous marriage. This double miniature possibly commemorates that moment, with the two unmarried siblings looking towards matrimony and parenthood.

The death of Marie-Adélaïde’s brother in 1768 left her the sole beneficiary of the family’s huge fortune. Naturally, her father looked to King Louis XV to orchestrate Marie-Adélaïde’s marriage and the year after the premature death of her brother she married the future Louis Philippe II, Duke of Orléans (1747-93), then Duke of Chartres. Many years of unhappy, complex marital relations and wildly differing views on politics and education followed for the couple. After the death of her father-in-law in 1785, her husband became Duke of Orleans and a First Prince of the Blood, but the change of status meant little for the harmony of the marriage. Marie-Adélaïde moved back to her father’s residence in 1791 and, despite supporting the Revolution of 1789, her husband was guillotined during the Reign of Terror in 1793. She died before the final twist in her extraordinary life, which was to see her son Louis Philippe, crowned as the last king of the French.