The Tansey Miniatures Foundation

Die Miniatur Über den Künstler

The Tansey Miniatures Foundation

DE
The Miniature About the Artist

Louis-Joseph de Bourbon, Prince of Condé

Jean-Daniel Welper

Two portraits of Louis-Joseph de Bourbon (1736-1818) are to be found in the Tansey Collection, painted by his court miniaturist, Jean-Daniel Welper. One of the portraits originated after a painting by Nattier and is framed with one of the prince’s wife.1 The miniature shown here copies a model that served for several other reproductions, although its provenance has not beendetermined.2
Louis-Joseph de Bourbon, son of Louis-Henri de Bourbon and Charlotte of Hesse-Rheinfeld-Rothenburg, was the eighth prince of Condé. At the age of 17 he married Charlotte Godefride Elizabeth, Princess de Rohan-Soubise, by whom he had three children before she died in 1760. Their son Louis-Henri-Joseph was the last of the important house of the princes of Condé, his only descendent being executed on the orders of Napoleon in 1804.
Louis-Joseph was a competent military leader. In 1758 he was a lieutenant-general, and he distinguished himself in the Seven Years’ War at Hastenbeck, Minden and Johannisberg. After the outbreak of the French Revolution he lived abroad and together with his son and grandson took part in military operations against the French troops. However, Austria and Prussia, not wanting to lose their control, never entrusted him with important assignments. In 1798 he arrived in St. Petersburg, married his second wife Marie-Caroline of Brignoles, Princess of Monaco, and after Moreau’s victory at Hohenlinden he fled to England. After Napoleon’s banishment Louis-Joseph was able to return to France, where he resided in Chantilly Palace and in the Palais Bourbon before he died in 1818.
B. P.

1 Cf. Otten, Pappe and Schmieglitz-Otten 2000, p. 180.
2 A larger portrait in oil, identical except for some minor details, was painted by Jean-Marie Ribou (Musée Condé, Chantilly), and another copy was created by Romain Cazes at the instigation of King Louis-Philippe in the 19th century. A further miniature portrait of the prince, also painted by Welper, exists in the Musée Condé, Chantilly.