The Tansey Miniatures Foundation

Die Miniatur Über den Künstler

The Tansey Miniatures Foundation

DE
The Miniature About the Artist

Maria Anna, Electress of Bavaria, née Princess of Poland and Saxony

German

The lady in a hunting costume whose identity was previously unknown has recently been identified by means of a comparable painting. The sitter is Maria Anna (1728–1797), Princess of Poland and Saxony and, from 1747, Electress of Bavaria through her marriage to Maximilian III Joseph. The miniature was painted after a painting by Franz Joseph Winter, which is in the collection of the Alte Pinakothek in Munich.1

Maria Anna is wearing a blue double-breasted hunting costume with a narrow, tailored waist. A high, tight-fitting white lace collar held at the throat by a black bow emerges from the small black velvet collar of her coat. Her black tricorn hat is trimmed with heron’s feathers. Hunting herons with falcons was a courtly pastime in which ladies of the nobility had participated since the middle ages.2 

Thus here is a second imposing depiction of Maria Anna at the hunt; some years before her marriage, she had commissioned Louis de Silvestre to paint her as Diana, the goddess of the hunt.3

Maria Anna’s marriage remained childless. Following the death of her husband in 1777, Maria Anna retired to Fürstenried Palace as her widow’s residence. However, she used her connections in favour of Bavaria during Karl Theodor’s succession as Elector. Karl Theodor had few ambitions, and Maria Anna’s support earned her the greatest respect in Bavaria.4

J.S.O.

1 Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlung – Alte Pinakothek München, inv. no. 4068.

2 For example, Wilhelmine, wife of Margrave Friedrich of Brandenburg-Bayreuth (inv. no. 10303), wrote in her extensive correspondence with her brother Frederick the Great of her enthusiasm especially for hunting herons at Himmelkron Palace.

3 The painting is now at Hubertusberg Castle near Dresden.

4 Maria Anna was buried in the Theatine Church in Munich in 1797. Her heart, however, was buried separately and is now in the Chapel of Grace in Altötting.