Anna Pavlovna of Russia, Queen of the Netherlands

Description

Miniature portrait of Grand Duchess Anna Pavlovna of Russia, Queen of the Netherlands

Signed Meuret

On ivory, oval, 6.5cm by 5.1cm

Anna Pavlovna of Russia (1795-1865) was the eighth child and sixth daughter of Paul I of Russia and Empress Maria Feodorovna (born Sophie Dorothee of Württemberg). In 1809, after failing to secure her elder sister Ekaterina, Emperor Napoleon asked for Anna’s hand in marriage. Her mother managed to delay her reply long enough for Napoleon to lose interest and marry Archduchess Marie Louise, the daughter of the Austrian emperor. On 21st February 1816 at the Chapel of the Winter Palace in St Petersburg, she married the Prince of Orange, the future King William II of the Netherlands. The marriage had been suggested by her brother the Tsar Alexander I in 1815, to confirm the alliance created after the Congress of Vienna. On 7th October 1840, on the abdication of her father-in-law, William I of the Netherlands, she became queen consort of the Netherlands.

François Meuret (French, 1800–1887) studied in Paris with Louis François Aubry (1767–1851). He exhibited at the Paris Salon from 1822 to 1852, receiving a second-class medal in 1827 and a first-class medal in 1843. Meuret was miniature painter to King Louis-Philippe of France (1773–1850). He was appointed chevalier of the Légion d’Honneur in 1864.