Marie Leszczyńska by Jean-Marc Nattier

Marie-Charlotte-Sophie-Félicité Leszczynska, daughter of the dethroned King of Poland, Stanislas Leszczynski, married Louis XV in 1725, when he was fifteen years old. This alliance was not particularly strategic for the French court, especially as she came from an aristocratic family elected by the Polish people, rather than being a princess of royal blood. However, she was of an age to bear children, and this was the French monarchy’s primary concern in 1725, given that Louis XV was the last surviving descendant of Louis XIV, following the deaths of the Grand Dauphin, the Petit Dauphin (his father), his mother and his two elder brothers.

The young queen was scrupulously kept at a distance from political power. She gave birth to ten children in ten years, six of whom died in infancy. Having effectively separated in 1738, the king and queen then each fulfilled their representative roles separately. The ‘devout’ faction naturally rallied round the queen: the Dauphin, his sisters—‘Mesdames, the king’s daughters’— who were scandalised by their father’s misconduct, as well as devout duchesses such as Madame de Villars, the queen’s lady-in-waiting, or the Duchess of Luynes, President Hénault, the Marquis d’Argenson, and, on occasion, Helvétius. Although devout, the Queen also enjoyed gambling and the cavagnole, tried her hand at drawing and painting, and, above all, at music. She was also a prolific letter-writer.

‘She was never held in high regard, but when she was nothing more than a neglected wife, and despite the impertinence of certain individuals, she always commanded respect through the dignity of her life and her piety... and her virtues ensured that, despite everything, she retained the trust of Louis XV” (M. Antoine, Louis XV, Paris, 1989, Hachette, p. 464). In 1748, portrayed by Jean-Marc Nattier (Versailles, Palace Museum), she was aged forty-five: exhausted by her pregnancies, religion had come to play a major role in her daily life and she surrounded herself with a friendly but small circle of friends, detached from the influence and intrigues of Versailles, as well as from its politics. She is remembered as a devoted, beloved and discreet queen at the French court. She died at Versailles in 1768.

The queen asked the artist to depict her in ‘town dress’ rather than in ceremonial attire, as in the portrait painted the previous year, in 1747, by Charles-André van Loo (1705–1765). In the painting, the queen wears a white lace bonnet held in place by a black lace mantilla, in a scene of perfect domestic tranquillity. She is seated in an armchair whose fabric, embroidered with fleurs-de-lis, discreetly alludes to the subject’s status, her left arm resting on a Gospel. The painting, exhibited at the 1748 Salon, received enthusiastic reviews both for the portrait’s likeness and for its ‘noble simplicity’. It enjoyed immense circulation through engravings from 1755 onwards, popularising the last official portrait of Marie Leszczynska.

Five years later, in 1753, she had her portrait painted once more by the artist (Pittsburgh, Frick Art Museum Collection). Her eyes are still lively and her complexion fresh; only her neck has become slightly fuller. The pastel housed at Carrouges Castle dates from the same period.

In the pastel housed at Carrouges Castle, the subject’s cheerfulness and liveliness are even more evident than in the portrait held in Pittsburgh. Her smile is mischievous: the queen is wrapped up in a large blue cloak and kept warm by a fur muff, wearing, as in the 1748 painting, a white lace bonnet held in place by a black lace mantilla. This lively expression, along with the bonnet and mantilla, are recurring features in portraits of the queen from the 1750s, as evidenced by the portrait after Maurice Quentin de La Tour (Versailles, the Palaces of Versailles and Trianon).

Xavier Salmon (ed.), Jean-Marc Nattier. 1685–1766, exhibition catalogue of the Musée national des châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon (26 October 1999–30 January 2000), Paris, R.M.N., 1999.

Xavier Salmon, Speaking to the Soul and the Heart: Painting According to Marie Leszczynska, exhibition catalogue, Château de Fontainebleau, 18 June–19 September 2011, Paris, Faton, 2011.