VON REISBERG SERIES | ROYAL DAUGHTERS: Immortalised in Paint 2 | THE EIGHT DAUGHTERS OF LOUIS XV AND QUEEN MARIE with Eugene Barilo Von Reisberg

King Louis XV of France, and his wife, Queen Marie Leszczyńska, were blessed with ten children, including eight girls. The hand in marriage of a French royal princess was eagerly sought after by the Catholic courts of Europe, while Queen Marie’s Polish origins promised an injection of fresh blood into the increasingly shallow gene pool of the closely interrelated Bourbon and Hapsburg dynasties. However, and not too dissimilarly to their British counterparts, the promising destinies of the eight daughters were altered irrevocably by their mother’s intense piety, court intrigues, and acrimonious relationships with the King’s mistresses. Though some of the girls lived long enough to witness (and survive) the French Revolution, they are largely forgotten today—save for the fine portraits painted of them by Jean-Marc Nattier, François-Hubert Drouais, and Adélaïde Labille-Guiard.

The title of princess conjures up courtly grandeur, and a careful upbringing and education in preparation for life at a foreign court as the leader of the fashionable world, champion of charitable and philanthropic endeavours, and the epitome of motherhood and domestic harmony. Some of the best court painters were called upon to encapsulate these exemplary qualities in their official portraits. 

The new lecture series, developed by Dr Eugene Barilo von Reisberg exclusively for The Johnston Collection, focuses on the daughters of British, French, and Russian monarchs. The lectures will be richly illustrated with portraits which will be deployed as a nexus between the idealised public image and the reality of life behind the shutters of ivory towers. 

The lectures will be accompanied by scholarly essays in the fairhall journal, where a selection of portraits will be considered in depth.

DR EUGENE BARILO VON REISBERG is a Melbourne-based scholar and art adviser, who shares his passion for art, history, and culture from the eighteenth century to the present day through regular lectures and publications. He has completed a doctoral dissertation on Franz Xaver Winterhalter (1805-1873), the 19th century elite portrait specialist, and is currently working towards a catalogue raisonné of the artist’s works

Adélaïde Labille-Guiard (French, 1749-1803  Marie Adélaïde of France (1732–1800), 1787 oil on canvas, 2783 x 1940 mm Musée National du Château Versailles (MV 3958)