After Giovanni Battista Foggini (1652 - 1725)

In 2019, Trinity Fine Art exhibited at TEFAF Maastricht a marble bust of Marguerite-Louise d’Orléans by Giovanni Battista Foggini, from which the present example derives (Height: 77 cm). A cousin of Louis XIV, Marguerite-Louise became Grand Duchess of Tuscany in 1661 through her marriage to Cosimo III de’ Medici. The commission of this bust belongs to a series of dynastic portraits of the Tuscan Grand Ducal family executed by Foggini, among which the portraits of Cosimo III de’ Medici and Ferdinando de’ Medici are held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (inv. 1993.332.1 and 1993.332.2), and that of Cardinal Leopoldo de’ Medici is in the Uffizi Gallery (inv. 1914 no. 350), with another example in the musée du Louvre (inv. RF 1193).

At the end of this ill-fated union—arranged by Louis XIV to strengthen ties between France and Tuscany—Marguerite-Louise returned to France in 1675 and spent the rest of her life at the Royal Abbey of Montmartre.