Eleonore von Gravenreuth, née von Zweibrücken

This young lady with short blonde curls is identified by an inscription on the reverse of the miniature as Eleonore von Gravenreuth. She was born in 1786, the second daughter of Christian Count of Forbach, Marquis de Deux-Ponts, a general who served in the Prussian army and later in the Bavarian army, and Adélaïde de Béthune. In 1806, she married Karl Ernst von Gravenreuth (1771 – 1826), a diplomat in the service of King Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria, who elevated Gravenreuth to the rank of count in 1825. Eleonore died in 1832. 

Eleonore von Gravenreuth had this miniature portrait painted for her sister-in-law Sophie, as indicated by the inscription. She commissioned it from Maximilian Schrott, an artist who was highly regarded at the time by the Munich aristocracy and the royal family. He painted the sitter in front of a broad landscape. Her body is framed by the treetops, and her head by the blue of the sunny sky. “[Schrott’s] portraits are good resemblances and painted with great delicacy”, wrote Georg Kaspar Nagler, praising the painter’s talent in his encyclopaedia of artists in 1846.¹ 

B. P.