Winterhalter, Franz Xaver: Louise Marie d’Orléans, Reine des Belges. Subscribers’ portrait as supplement to: Le Chateau d’Eu Illustré

The first Belgian king deserved an appropriate wife. After the tragic misfortune with Charlotte in England, the widower Leopold I married Louise Marie d’Orléans (1812–1850), the daughter of the French king Louis-Philippe, in 1832. This union may have been above all politically calculated to strengthen the image and security of the young kingdom. But the marriage turned out to be happy and Marie Victor gave Leopold four children, including a daughter, who was named Charlotte in memory of his late first wife. She later became Empress of Mexico. On the etching by Franz Xaver Winterhalter, the delicate figure of the Belgian queen appears in full length. The original portrait was painted around 1841 and is preserved in the Royal Collections in Brussels; a second version is in the Royal Collections at Frogmore House. It was Louise Marie who recommended the portrait painter Franz Xaver Winterhalter to her niece Queen Victoria.

To the digitised copy