MARIANNA WALDSTEIN, MARQUESA DE SANTA-CRUZ, signed and dated 1793

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MARIANNA WALDSTEIN, MARQUESA DE SANTA-CRUZ, signed and dated 1793
A fine miniature of a young lady standing in a prison courtyard and inscribing on a wall: "La nature L'amour la mort", her curled brown hair falling in long curls onto her shoulders, wearing a white muslin chemise tied with a blue-striped mauve sash -- 84 mm diam., fine cast gilt-metal frame with plain reverse

Lot Essay

Marianna (Vienna 1763 - 1808 Madrid), daughter of Count Emmanuel Waldstein and his wife née Liechtenstein, was the second wife of José-Joachino de Silva-Bazan, Marques de Santa-Cruz, grand chamberlain at the Spanish Court. Nevertheless, she became the mistress of Napoléon's brother Lucien Bonaparte when her husband let a part of his Madrid palace to Lucien, then French Ambassador to Spain. Lucien is known to have worn her self-portrait en miniature suspended from a chain of her plaited hair. Some years after this love affair, Lucien tried to recover the 500,000 Francs he had leant to the Marquesa, but in vain. Despite this, when Marianna moved to Paris in order to take lessons from Augustin, she was very friendly with Napoléon (who described her as "fort jolie"), Madame Mère, Caroline, Élisa and Jérôme Bonaparte. For further details, see Antonello Pietromarchi, Lucien Bonaparte, Paris 1985, pp. 107f., 141f., 157, and Mariano Tomàs, La miniatura-retrato in España, Spain 1953, p. 92.

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