The portrait genre finds an ideal development support in the ‘miniature’. The intimate image was projected in these small formats which developed extensively from the 16th century to the first half of the 19th century. But its importance went beyond the limits of the private sphere, also fulfilling a clear public function, used as a gift for the exchange of power between the various European courts. Today we stop at that dimension, that of the reaffirmation and exhibition of sovereignty. The first element of this official reading is the identity of the subject, a young Elizabeth II accompanied by the characteristic elements of a court portrait. The scene is framed in an interior, the symbols of her status surround the figure. The young woman is wearing a blue gala dress with puffed sleeves and a wide neckline; on her chest the sash of the Order of Queen Maria Luisa. The biographical profile of the model is marked by her being the first Spanish constitutional queen, by her youth and her inexperience; we recall that Elizabeth was proclaimed queen a few days after her fourteenth birthday, on 24 October 1843. The adolescent image of the queen finds its status balance in the sensational presence of the two royal symbols par excellence: the crown and the scepter. To these is added the definition of the scene, especially through the heavy curtains open to the classical architecture, a scenography that frames the young figure and recalls her biography.
The traditional compositional model and the socio-political meaning of the object dialogue with the use of a support that was very popular at the time, that of the miniature. In this case the queen opts for a portrait on porcelain, a technique which was particularly successful in France in the second quarter of the 19th century. French workshops specialized in their production, attracting the attention of European clientele, and it was common for members of the Spanish nobility to come to the French capital to commission a type of portraiture not practiced by Spanish artists. Even the crown, a follower of fashions in terms of art and style, did not escape this spell and chose famous Parisian authors of the time to commission their effigies. At this point we stop to mention the second reading of this object, the one that tells us about a woman painter and her exquisite technique. The fame achieved by Sophie Liènard, a renowned painter of images from the Parisian workshop of Rihouet, attracted the attention of the Spanish court to portray the young queen, showing her in fashion and without losing a shred of solemnity. You sign this miniature image (walking up to the right, on the column) as ‘Sie Lienard’, a detail that shouldn’t go unnoticed and which leads us to the last reading we want to offer. We are in a moment in which the painter had to reaffirm her autonomy and above all her paternity. Her husband, Justin Louis Liènard, was a painter and she took her surname upon marriage. Including in her signature, before the surname Liènard, the name ‘Sophie’ or the abbreviation ‘Sie’, as in this case, has a clear intention. The art world was used to the male signature, forgetting and even leaving the female production invisible. Sophie Liènard, like every author, has tried to distinguish her work with her own independent signature, as well as with an exquisitely refined style. The work we are looking at today is an example that they have shined in the world of artistic creation and that they have done it on the professional stage, with their palette and paint, just like men.
