POSSIBLY AUSTRIAN, CIRCA 1792

An identical pair of portrait silhouettes are at Waddesdon Manor (see T. Hodgkinson, The James A. de Rothschild Collection at Waddesdon Manor, Sculpture, London, 1970, nos. 44-45). Hodgkinson concludes that the portraits probably date from 1792, when Francis II became Holy Roman Emperor on the death of his father Leopold II; only then was he entitled to wear the insignia of Grand Master of the Order of Maria Theresa, his grandmother. Maria Theresa of Naples and Sicily was the Emperor's double first cousin, whom he married in 1790 as his second wife, and who was mother to all of his children. An identical pair of portrait silhouettes was sold 'The Gothick Pavilion: Byron to Beaton', Christie’s, London, 9 December 2010, lot 81. With a number of these portrait roundels surviving in various collections, it is possible that they were originally made to commemorate the coronation of Francis II.