D'APRÈS LOUIS-SIMON BOIZOT (1743-1809), around 1800Portrait of
Madame Royale, daughter of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette at
the age of 1 year, also known as L'enfant aux coussinsMarbre blancAfter
L. S. Boizot, Portrait of Madame Royale, daughter of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette, one
year-old, white marble, c. 1800

.HAUT. 35 CM - WIDTH 20 CM - DEPTH 19.5 CM -

13 3/4 X 7 7 7/8 X 7 5/8 IN. Related
workAfter Louis-Simon BOIZOT, Portrait of Madame Royale, daughter of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette at the age of 1 year, Royal Manufacture of Sèvres. Early 19th century, Porcelain, soft paste H. 23,5cm, Château de Versailles
, MV 9149.

This portrait is that of Marie-Thérèse Charlotte of France, eldest daughter of King Louis XVI of France and Marie-Antoinette. Born in Versailles on December 19, 1778, after a long-awaited birth, the young child was given the title of "Madame Royale".

The

few preserved portraits, whether made by anonymous artists or by famous names such as Vigée Lebrun, all have the same characteristics: wide rounded forehead, large almond-shaped eyes set apart from the nose, small lips on a small chin flanked by

rounded cheeks.

The model of this work was created by an artist familiar with the Court of France, Louis-Simon Boizot. Official portrait painter of Marie Antoinette from 1774-1775, he had the honour of depicting the intimacy of the queen and her children through the model of Madame Royale made in 1779 and Madame Royale and the Dauphin playing on a tile

in 1782-83.B

oizot became Director of the sculpture workshops at the royal manufactory of Sèvres in 1773, and gave models of more than 150 busts, statuettes and biscuit groups that skilfully demonstrated the tastes and fashions of the last third of the 18th

century.

Among his models, the one representing Madame Royale enfant, later entitled L'enfant aux coussins, presents an example of a child portrait as they multiplied from the 1770s after the innovative work of Pigalle, Houdon or Lemoyne.

While the

artistic stakes revolve around resemblance and idealization, this portrait of the little princess shows the talent of the sculptor who succeeded in highlighting all

facial

expressions

.

In the same vein as the biscuit characters previously produced by Falconet according to François Boucher's drawings, this delicious composition of the child comfortably installed on cozy cushions was later widely distributed in biscuit. We also know of another marble example (former Courty collection, Villanfray and Associates sale of 26/06/2013, lot 130), which, like our marble, presents iconographic variations (in the Courty Collection, the Dauphine sits on a rock base, here the child holds a lily).