Saint Amelia, Queen of Hungary Delaroche

''Saint Amelia, Queen of Hungary'' is an oil painting by Paul Delaroche which was investigated in 2016 by the BBC TV programme '' Fake or Fortune?''

Lost work

A painting of Saint Amelia by French history painter Paul Delaroche was commissioned in 1831 by Queen Marie-Amélie, wife of Louis Philippe, King of the French. The work was exhibited at the Salon of 1834 in Paris. In 1837, the painting was recorded as being hung in the Royal Chapel at the Tuileries Palace in Paris, and it was copied in an engraving by Paolo Mercuri. It was also reproduced as the main panel in a

stained glass Stained glass is coloured glass as a material or works created from it. Throughout its thousand-year history, the term has been applied almost exclusively to the windows of churches and other significant religious buildings. Although tradition ...

window for the Queen's private chapel at the Château d'Eu. A preparatory drawing in chalk, graphite and watercolour is held by the British Museum. The original painting was believed to be lost.

''Fake or Fortune?''

The '' Fake or Fortune?'' team investigated a version of the painting, housed at

Castle of Park The Castle of Park is a 16th-century L-plan tower house near Glenluce, in the historic county of Wigtownshire in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland. It is a category A listed building. History The castle was begun in 1590 for Thomas Hay, the son ...

in Cornhill, Aberdeenshire, to determine whether it was the Delaroche original or one of a number of copies. This unsigned work was bought in 1989, for about £500, by the late Neil Wilson, an art dealer who had worked for

Christie's Christie's is a British auction house founded in 1766 by James Christie (auctioneer), James Christie. Its main premises are on King Street, St James's in London, at Rockefeller Center in New York City and at Alexandra House in Hong Kong. It is ...

after leaving university. The painting's

provenance Provenance (from the French ''provenir'', 'to come from/forth') is the chronology of the ownership, custody or location of a historical object. The term was originally mostly used in relation to works of art but is now used in similar senses i ...

was very poor. In the programme, art expert

Bendor Grosvenor Bendor Gerard Robert Grosvenor (born 27 November 1977) is a British art historian, writer and former art dealer. He is known for discovering a number of important lost artworks by Old Master artists, including Sir Peter Paul Rubens, Claude Lorrai ...

revealed an 1866 watercolour by Joseph Nash depicting the painting in the Queen's bedroom at Claremont House in

Surrey Surrey () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South East England, bordering Greater London to the south west. Surrey has a large rural area, and several significant urban areas which form part of the Greater London Built-up Area. ...

, where the deposed King and Queen lived after fleeing France following the Revolution of 1848. Following Maria Amalia's death in 1866, records in the

Bibliothèque nationale de France The Bibliothèque nationale de France (, 'National Library of France'; BnF) is the national library of France, located in Paris on two main sites known respectively as ''Richelieu'' and ''François-Mitterrand''. It is the national repository ...

proved that the painting passed to her fourth child, Prince Louis, Duke of Nemours, who owned Bushy House in London until his death in 1896, but no records were found that proved where the painting passed after 1896. The next sighting of the painting was when it was sold at Christie's in 1980 as a work by the French artist Fleury François Richard, with the title 'A Queen and her Retinue at Worship'. Technical analysis showed that colour anomalies in the painting were the result of pigment degradation, and that parts of the painting had also been restored. After reviewing the show's findings, Professor Stephen Bann, a leading Delaroche expert, concluded that it was the lost original. He also revealed a letter written by Delaroche, in which he registers his dismay at the state of the picture after it had been copied to create a stained glass window for Queen Marie-Amélie, and says that he will have to do considerable work to restore it. Following its authentication, Wilson's widow, Becky, was reported to have decided to keep the painting, but allow it to be displayed at the British Museum in London when a Delaroche exhibition takes place. Subsequently, the painting was sold via

in July 2019 for £33,750.''Sainte Amélie, Reine de Hongrie''
– Christie’s.

Subject

Maria Amalia and her paternal grandmother Maria Amalia of Saxony, Queen Consort of Spain, celebrated their feast day on July 13. Also Maria Amalia is depicted as this saint in the stained-glass of the Église Notre-Dame-de-Compassion de Paris, with the drawing originally made by

Ingres Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres ( , ; 29 August 1780 – 14 January 1867) was a French Neoclassicism, Neoclassical Painting, painter. Ingres was profoundly influenced by past artistic traditions and aspired to become the guardian of academic ...

. He tried to find out who she was, but with no luck. There is no Amelia in the list of Hungarian Queens. The only Hungarian royal "saint" with the title of Queen is Gisela of Bavaria, wife of Saint Stephen I of Hungary himself, but her

canonization Canonization is the declaration of a deceased person as an officially recognized saint, specifically, the official act of a Christian communion declaring a person worthy of public veneration and entering their name in the canon catalogue of ...

in the 18th century failed. She was beatified only in 1975. However there is a Hungarian royal saint named Elizabeth of Hungary, Landgravine Consort of Thuringia (1207 - 1231), who is associated with an event known as the Miracle of the Roses, which is also told of her great-niece and fellow saint Elizabeth of Aragon, Queen Consort of Portugal. This may connect with the floral imagery of the painting. Amalberga, Bech-Kleinmacher-101

There are three Saint named Amelia or a variant thereof. Two noblewomen with the same name were also relatives of the later Carolingian dynasty:

Amalberga of Maubeuge Saint Amalberga of Maubeuge (also Amalia, or Amelia of Lobbes or Binche) was a Merovingian nun and saint who lived in the 7th century. Narrative Amalberga's father was Saint Geremarus. She was born in Brabant. She is said to have been the n ...

and

Amalberga of Temse Amalberga of Temse (c. 741 – 10 July 772) was a Lotharingian noblewoman from the Frankish royal house of the Pippinids who is celebrated as a saint in the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church. She is especially venerate ...

, and they are both official saints recognized by the Roman Catholic Church. There is also a non-noble Amelberga of Susteren. There is also Amalaberga, niece of Theodoric the Great, who married Hermanafrid, King of Thuringia, whoever this Thuringian connection with Elizabeth of Hungary is questionable at best.

References

External links

*
''Fake of Fortune: Delaroche''
at bbc.co.uk {{Paul Delaroche Paintings by Paul Delaroche 1834 paintings Fake or Fortune?