Infanta Maria Ludovica of Spain and the two Sicilies

Medium: Oil On Canvas
Size: 47.5 x 37.7 cm (18.7 x 14.8 in)

Provenance: Royal House of the Two Sicilies.

Infanta Maria Ludovica was born in Naples on 24 November 1745, the 5th but 2nd surviving daughter of Charles VII, King of the Two Sicilies (from 1759 King Charles III of Spain, died 1788) and his wife Maria Amalie, Princess of Saxony (1724-1760). She married by proxy at Madrid 16 Feb 1764 (and in person at Innsbruck 4 Aug 1765) Leopold I, Grand Duke of Tuscany, Archduke of Austria, Royal Prince of Hungary and Bohemia, who succeeded his elder brother Joseph I as Emperor of the Romans and King of Germany 1790. First reigning as Grand Duchess in Florence, until her husband's succession as Emperor, she survived him by just over two months, dying in Vienna on 15 May 1792. She had sixteen children of whom fourteen survived infancy; the eldest son, Francis, succeeded his father as Emperor and founded the Imperial House of Austria-Hungary, the second, Ferdinand, became Grand Duke of Tuscany and was ancestor of the surviving Tuscan line, while the third, Karl, commanded the Austrian armies against Napoleon. Only two of her daughters married, the elder, Theresia, to the King of Saxony, the younger, Clementina, to Francis I of the Two Sicilies.

Another slightly smaller version of this composition, formerly belonging to the Infante Don Sebastian of Spain and Portugal (1811-75), is presently on the London art market.