{"product_id":"25765-louise-of-mecklenburg-strelitz-miniature-hand-painted-portrait-miniature-in-fine-binding","title":"[Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. (1776 - 1810)] [Miniature] Hand Painted Portrait Miniature in Fine Binding","description":"\u003cp\u003eFinely bound small format \u003cem\u003ealbum amiricorum\u003c\/em\u003e, featuring on the inside front board a silver-metal mounted very delicately painted miniature portrait of Reine Louise, or Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Queen of Prussia from 1797 to 1810 as wife of Frederick William III. The black leather binding with stamped gilt detailing to inner and outer edges, mounted silver-metal decorative surround and clasp. Inner boards and endpages of pale white silk, following pages hand-numbered 10 - 72 (evidence of removal of the first 9 pages), two delicately painted watercolors mounted to the first two sheets, each signed \"I.E. Held\" and dated respectively 1821 and 1819, the earlier with text on painted rock formation \"Der Freundschaft Gew. -\", the following leaf inscribed in a contemporary hand \"Princess von Mecklenburg \/ sister to the Queen of Prussia.\" Miniature painting approx. 6 x 7 cm; binding 5 x 3.75 inches; 12.5 x 9.5 cm. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003eThis half-length portrait depicts Louise in a white chemise dress, her head turned slightly the right. She wears a cornflower-blue shawl wrapped lightly around her body, draped from her right shoulder. The rendering of the face is of impressive liveliness, her hair drawn with the utmost delicacy. This basic style of portraying Louise in similar attire was replicated perhaps more than any other of the portraits painted during her lifetime by Johann Heinrich Schröder (1757-1812) and by other artists. The origin of Schröder's first version, which has not been clearly identified to date, is attested to by a letter from the Queen to her husband dated 26th May 1800: \"After my bath my brothers visited me [...] I got dressed and at 11 o'clock I sat opposite Mr Schröder, who, by the way, is coming back again today.\" \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe portrait is of an extraordinarily fine quality and unlike some of the later depictions of the Queen which were turned out through the 19th century and even into the early years of the 20th. The \u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003eblack mourning color of the binding, the luxurious features of silk endpages and silver mounting - and high quality of the portrait, strongly suggest that this album was a production for a Royal or Aristocratic intimate of the Queen, closely following her early death. At some point the early pages were removed and may have provided more certainty or attribution; the portrait has not been removed or examined out of the glass mount and may indeed be signed. But the mounted watercolors (the later of which is mounted earlier in the volume), allow us to at least date the volume to within 9 years of the Queen's passing in 1810. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDuchess Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz was Queen of Prussia and the wife of King Frederick William III. The couple's happy, though short-lived, marriage produced nine children, including the future monarchs Frederick William IV of Prussia and Wilhelm I, German Emperor.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHer legacy became cemented after her extraordinary 1807 meeting with French Emperor Napoleon I at Tilsit – she met with the emperor to plead unsuccessfully for favorable terms after Prussia's disastrous losses in the Napoleonic Wars. She was already well loved by her subjects, but her meeting with Napoleon led Louise to become revered as \"the soul of national virtue\". Her early death at the age of thirty-four \"preserved her youth in the memory of posterity\", and caused Napoleon to reportedly remark that the king \"has lost his best minister\". The Order of Louise was founded by her grieving husband four years later as a female counterpart to the Iron Cross. In the 1920s, conservative German women founded the Queen Louise League, and Louise herself would be used in Nazi propaganda as an example of the ideal German woman.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Schubertiade Music and Arts","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":62765363495071,"sku":"25765","price":3500.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0512\/4826\/7423\/files\/LouiseMS25765a.jpg?v=1776542660","url":"https:\/\/www.schubertiademusic.com\/products\/25765-louise-of-mecklenburg-strelitz-miniature-hand-painted-portrait-miniature-in-fine-binding","provider":"Schubertiade Music and Arts","version":"1.0","type":"link"}