Portrait of Marie-Adélaïde of Savoy - Pierre Gobert (1662-1744) and workshop

Pierre Gobert (1662-1744) and workshop. Portrait of Marie-Adélaïde of Savoy, Dauphine of France, Duchess of Burgundy (1685-1712)

Relined canvas measuring 91 cm by 65 cm
Antique period frame measuring 101 cm by 88 cm.

This beautiful painting produced around 1700 shows us Marie-Adélaïde of Savoy, eldest daughter of the Duke of Savoy Amédée of Savoy II. She became Duchess of Burgundy and Dauphine of France through her marriage in 1697 to the second son of Louis XIV, Louis of France known as the Little Dauphin. It was a dynastic marriage that sealed the (short-lived) reconciliation between France and the Duchy of Savoy; he was fifteen and she was twelve. If life had not decided otherwise, she would have become Queen of France since her husband became the heir after the death of his elder brother the Grand Dauphin. But of this family of three children, the parents and two of the children died in particular from the measles epidemic, only the Duke of Anjou, future Louis XV survived. On the pictorial level, it is necessary to note this dress magnificently made with laces of great finesse; embroidered silks of great beauty…

Pierre Gobert (1662-1744)

He is the son of the sculptor Jean II Gobert. Born into a family of artists, Pierre Gobert began working at a very young age for the court. In 1682, he received the commission for the Portrait of the Duke of Burgundy aged a few weeks (lost), the first of a long list of portraits of children, a genre in which Gobert would excel the most. Approved by the Royal Academy in 1686, he was very quickly overloaded with commissions, his career as a portrait painter, notably in Munich for the court of Bavaria, probably left him little time. From 1707, Gobert worked for the court of Lorraine where he had been called by Duke Leopold. During this stay, he painted an impressive number of portraits which implies the existence of a workshop. Back in Paris, he worked very regularly for the Court, producing portraits of most of the members of the royal family, of which the Palace of Versailles preserves the most interesting examples. This prolific artist produced many portraits with rather fixed attitudes, which is why his talent has sometimes been depreciated in comparison with the works of other artists, including those of François de Troy or Hyacinthe Rigaud.