Carle van Loo

Private collection, United Kingdom.

This intimate portrait by Carle van Loo, depicts the artist’s only surviving daughter Marie-Rosalie (1737–1762) in a cameo-like profile against a subdued background. The restrained composition focuses entirely on her delicate features, whose luminous flesh tones emerge softly from the surrounding shadow. A single pearl earring catches the light, while her elaborate coiffure, adorned with ribbons and lace, reflects contemporary fashions of the mid-18^th century.

Marie-Rosalie occupied a special place within her father’s artistic practice and appears repeatedly in his œuvre. Her distinctive profile closely recalls that of the child musician in Van Loo’s Music of 1753 (Legion of Honor, San Francisco),¹ one of the four celebrated allegorical canvases depicting the arts commissioned as overdoors for Madame de Pompadour’s Château de Bellevue, where she is thought to have served as the model. This composition also relates to a pastel study in The Art Institute of Chicago,² and to a print published by Louis-Marin Bonnet around 1764,³ explicitly identifying the sitter as the artist’s daughter. Together with other surviving sketches of Marie-Rosalie, these works reveal Van Loo’s fascination with childhood and attest to the deeply personal significance of this charming portrait.

¹ Inv. no. 1950.12; oil on canvas, 87.6 x 84.5 cm.; https://www.famsf.org/artworks/music-2

² Inv. no. 1959.528; pastel, with touches of black crayon and red chalk, on blue laid paper, laid down on blue wove paper, laid down on cream wove paper, 23.4 x 18.2 cm.; https://www.artic.edu/artworks/11058/study-head-of-a-young-girl-facing-to-the-left

³ See for example the impression in The Art Institute of Chicago; https://www.artic.edu/artworks/261876/marie-rosalie-vanloo