Franz Xaver Winterhalter: International Portraits 1 31

"Roza Portocka" by Franz Xaver Winterhalter

"Outside the Imperial Court, Franz Xaver Winterhalter continued to fulfill a wide range of international obligations. In 1852, he travelled to Spain with a friend to paint a flamboyant state portrait of Queen Isabella. In 1854 followed portraits of King Pedro of Portugal and his brother, the Duke of Oporto, the Belgian Prince de Chimay, Princesse Murat, Queen Victoria's Indian protétgé the Maharajah Duleep Singh, and her son, Prince Leopold, William I of Prussia, and the artist's old patron, the widowed Sophie of Baden, elegant and beautiful to the end. In 1856, he briefly visited England, executing a set of watercolours of the Queen and her family.

The most extensive journey of 1856, however, was much further afield, to Warsaw. His patronsin Paris had included many of the great Polish families, the Potockis, Krasinskis and Branickis, who were closely linked by ties of marriage and friendship. These Francophile families were well-established in Parisian society and noted for their beauty, earlth and taste. Winterhalter found them congenial spirits.

The year of the Poles was 1845, 1857 the year of the Russians. In the summer of that year, Winterhalter went to Bad Brückinau to paint the Tsar and Tsarina. Writing from Germany on 26 July 1857, the Tsarina's lady-in-waiting, Countess Tolstoi, acknowledged the arrival of these two works:

'I displayed them skillfully and in a good light, and only then did their Majesties enter. I wanted to see the first impression in order to report it to you, my dear Monsieur Winterhalter. Well, you must be satisfied, for both the Emperor and the Empress were delighted and did not know which of the two portraits to prefer, each being thrilled. But there was a still bigger exhibition and among the numerous guest was the King of Prussia, who greatly admired your work and told us that you painted him in two sittings. Opinions on the likeness of the two portraits were divided as is usual, but the enthusiasm for the beauty of the painting was universal and unanimous. As I looked at the beautiful pictures I myself thought I was once again in the beautiful Peterstal, where we have spent so many lovely days. I only wish that you will not forget them and that the memory of them may one day bring you to St. Petersburg, where you will find the same friends again.' 

To be continued

(Excerpts from the introduction by Richard Ormund, to "Franz Xaver Winterhalter and the Courts of Europe 1830-70.")