Louis-Philippe, after Franz-Xaver Winterhalter

Born in Germany in the Grand Duchy of Baden in 1805, Franz-Xaver Winterhalter studied in Munich under Joseph Karl Stieler, a pupil of François Gérard, the great French portrait painter and creator of a famous gallery of beauties for King Louis I of Bavaria. In 1834, on his return from a study trip to Italy, Winterhalter was appointed official court painter to Baden, but also exhibited in Paris from the 1835 Salon onwards.

Noticed by Parisian high society, he caught the attention of the House of Orléans, and Queen Marie-Amélie commissioned him to paint the official portrait of Louis-Philippe in 1839, of which numerous official copies were produced.

He is depicted full-length in front of a view of the park at Saint-Cloud, a royal estate purchased by the Duke of Orléans. He is wearing his lieutenant-general’s uniform and holds his bicorne, adorned with the tricolour cockade, under his left arm. His right hand rests on the Charter of 1830, placed on a table alongside the closed crown, the sceptre and the sceptre of justice. Louis-Philippe wears the red moiré sash, the crosses and the embroidered plaque of the Legion of Honour – modified during the Restoration to feature tricolour flags. Louis-Philippe deliberately breaks with the ostentation and pomp of the Ancien Régime.

As ‘King of the French’ rather than ‘King of France’, Louis-Philippe does not deny his glorious lineage, particularly with the presence of the Regalia laid out on a table to the right. However, his right hand rests on the charter, an essential element of the painting. The greatest innovation lies above all in the king’s attire: a military uniform, a symbol of his authority and a national emblem, just like that of other European sovereigns. Frederick William^I, King of Prussia, was the first to be depicted in military dress. The composition nevertheless retains something of the portrait of the sovereign in coronation robes, with a sense of theatricality preserved through the curtains framing the portrait, the monumental column, and the carpet contrasting with the exterior view.

Franz-Xaver Winterhalter painted other portraits of the House of Orléans: those of his wife, Queen Marie-Amélie; his sister, Madame Adélaïde; and his children and their spouses are now on display at the National Museum of the Palace of Versailles.

Franz-Xaver Winterhalter and the Courts of Europe, 1830–1870, exhibition catalogue, Paris, Muséedu Petit Palais, 1988.

Franz-Xaver Winterhalter: Court Portraits– BetweenSplendourandElegance, exhibition catalogue, Musée du Palais de Compiègne, 30 September 2016–15 January 2017, Paris, Réunion des Musées Nationaux, 2016.

Muriel Vigie, The Official Portrait in France from^{the 5th} to the^20th Century, Paris, FWW, 2000.