ATTRIBUTED TO DAFFINGER, circa 1837

THE PROPERTY OF A NOBLEMAN

Details

ATTRIBUTED TO DAFFINGER, circa 1837

Count Hector Lucchesi-Palli with flowing curly black hair, beard and moustache, wearing a black coat and waistcoat over a white shirt fastened with a gold pin and gold chain and a knotted black silk cravat, his left breast decorated with a chain suspending two miniature-orders, the breast-star of an Order hidden under the left lapel of the coat, a pink-lined brown cloak with broad brown fur-collar draped over his right shoulder; cloud and sky background -- 65 mm high, plain gilt-metal mount within a rectangular ebonized wood panel.

Provenance

Caroline, Duchess of Berry (1798-1870), wife of the sitter; Count of Chambord (1820-1883), step-son of the sitter; Don Jaime of Bourbon (1870-1931), heir of the Count of Chambord; Princess Beatrix of Bourbon, Princess Massimo and Duchess of Anticoli-Corrado (b. 1874), sister of Don Jaime, and thence by family descent.

Lot Essay

A variant of this miniature, a watercolour signed Daffinger and dated "Vienne le 16 Janvier 1837 Hector Lucchesi-Palli" is illustrated and discussed in Georg Kugler, Staatskanzler Metternich und seine Gäste. Die wiedergefundenen Miniaturen von Moritz Michael Daffinger [...] aus dem Gästealbum der Fürstin Melanie Metternich, Graz, Vienna and Cologne, n. d., pl. 23.
Caroline, widow of the murdered Duke of Berry since 1820, remarried secretly in 1831 young Count Ettore Lucchesi-Palli (1805 Palermo - 1864 Brunnsee), during a visit to her native city of Naples. According to Georg Kugler (op. cit., p. 418), "Count Ettore was never more than a subordinate character [...]. His sole, inglorious achievement was to have squandered his wife's fortune at the gaming (sic) table." Nevertheless, he was styled Duke della Grazia in 1856.

We are grateful to Georges Englebert, Vienna, for his kind help in preparing this catalogue entry.

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