A Doccia white porcelain relief portrait plaque of Maria Theresa, Archduchess of Austria, Queen of Hungary and Bohemia, Circa 1765-70

The Collection of Giovanni & Gabriella Barilla, Geneva, Sotheby's, London, 14 March 2012, lot 243.

On 14 February 1736, Maria Theresa of Austria (1717-1780), daughter of the Holy Roman Emperor, married Francis Stephen, Duke of Lorraine (1708-1765) and later spent their honeymoon in Florence. Maria Theresa’s Florentine sympathies were strengthened when her husband succeeded to the Grand Duchy of Tuscany on the death of the last Medici, Gian Gaston, in 1737. Eight years later, in 1745, he was declared Holy Roman Emperor.

The first record of a portrait of Maria Theresa in Doccia porcelain was a gift offered by Carlo Ginori himself, perhaps upon her ascension as Queen of Bohemia in 1743, and is described in a letter dated 22 August 1744, sent by the Venetian merchant Marco Zuanda to Ginori:

‘From Your Excellency’s letter of 20 June I understand that happily the portrait of the Queen has arrived safely and that you have found it to your satisfaction. I have ready one of gesso which Your Excellency desired and I am looking for an opportunity to get it to signor Belloni who will bring it from Venice to deliver it into your hands… Vienna, 22 August 1744.’

(agl, Carlo Ginori Correspondence, X no. 359.)ⁱ

Today, three large Doccia plaques from this first period are recorded, all unique in their modelling showing a profile image of a youthful Empress, in low relief within an integral porcelain rocailles frame; these comprise:

one in the white with a frame surmounted by the imperial crown is in the Museo di Doccia at Sesto Fiorentino;ⁱⁱ

a second in the white, somewhat similar to the above, but with different treatments of the modelling of the crown and drapery is in the Pflueger collection at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, acc. no. 2003.118;ⁱⁱⁱ

and the third, in the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, acc. no. C.35-1932, which is painted in enamels, and largely differs in the modelling with the crown being removed from the frame and placed in low relief at the Empress’ side.

The Doccia factory also produced conjoined portraits of Maria Theresa and her husband, and an example is in the Museo Duca di Martina, Naples.^iv The present plaque appears to be unique depicting the Empress in older age, probably after the death of her husband in 1765.

_{i d’Agliano, in C. Lehner-Jobst, op. cit, p. 209.}

_{ii Biancalana, 2009, p. 114.}

_{iii Probably in the 19th century the plaque was owned by Demidoff family, Villa Pratolino, Florence; by descent to H. R. H. Prince Paul of Yugoslavia (1893-1976) and Princess Olga of Greece (1903- 1997); sold, Sotheby’s, London, 5th July 1966, lot 15 and again 13 July 1976, lot 85.}

_{iii d'Agliano, in C. Lehner-Jobst, op. cit., p. 209.}

Related Literature

A. d'Agliano, Settecento Europeo e Barocco Toscano, exhibition catalogue, Lukacs & Donath Gallery, Rome 1996, pp. 78-79, cat. no. 54;

A. Biancalana, Porcellane e Maioliche a Doccia, La Fabbrica Dei Marchese Ginori I primi Centro Anni, Florence 2009, p. 114;

L. F. Malenchini, et al., ‘The Victoria and Albert Museum Collection’, Amici di Doccia - Quaderni VII 2013, 2014, pp. 22-23, no. 2.