Location: Room XV – Audience Chamber
This canvas depicts Charlotte’s father, Leopold I, who was Prince of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and King of Belgium starting in 1831. Charlotte was his youngest daughter, born after he married Princess Louise of Orléans, the daughter of the King of France.
Other portraits of the ruler were present at Miramare, as demonstrated by archival documents.
Displayed in the Audience Chamber, this painting is a copy of an 1840 original by German painter Franz Xaver Winterhalter, which is part of the collection of Versailles. Other copies of the same portrait can be found in Belgium, England and Bavaria.
Depicted in three-quarter profile, Leopold I wears a high-ranking military uniform, decorated with the Cross of the Order of Leopold I and other state honours. The king’s complexion and the uniform’s decorations stand out brilliantly against the heavy red drapery in the background.
Leopold I was a shrewd, wise diplomat active in the European political scene in the mid-nineteenth century. He was the mastermind of skilled mediation efforts between royal families of the era, especially inter-dynastic marriages, including that of his niece, Queen Victoria, to Prince Albert.
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