Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Portrait of Princess Juliane

This is a painting by the great Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun of Princess Juliane of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld (1781-1860), an older sister of King Leopold I of the Belgians. The portrait was destroyed by bombs during the Second World War. As a young girl of fourteen, Juliane married Grand Duke Constantine of Russia, a brother of Tsars Alexander I and Nicholas I, converting to Orthodoxy and changing her name to Anna Feodorovna. The marriage was deeply unhappy, however, and soon fell apart. Anna subsequently had several lovers and illegitimate children.

2 comments:

gio said...

That's a beautiful picture. What a shame that it was destroyed.

Gem said...

A lovely portrait of the youthful and headstrong Anna. :)