Maria Ludovica,wife of Emperor Leopold II

[Gabriel Antonio]

Thank you, Countess Kate.
Of course Joseph was in Italy in 1769- I had forgotten about the famous painting by Pompeo Batoni that year of the two royal brothers-Joseph and Leopold.
I had also been thinking of the famous painting of the family of Charles IV and how Maria Josefa did not look like a dwarf. Thank you for your confirmation on that.
Daniela had posted the question regarding Maria Ludovica's death only two months after Leopold asking if she had been ill or so affected by her husband's death. If you have any information on that, please share. It must have been such a shock to their many children- most of them only  teenagers or even younger (Rudolph was only 4!) to lose both parents in such quick succession. One wonders how history would have been different if they had lived even only 5 more years into the most turbulent times ahead- especially Leopold.
 

[Gabriel Antonio]

Am I wrong- or is this painting not of Maria Ludovica, but instead of Marie Carolina's daughter Maria Theresa of Naples who married Maria Ludovica's oldest son Franz?

[Eric_Lowe]

It looks like it. :-)

[CountessKate]

It is in fact her sister, Maria Luisa Amelia Teresa, who married her double first cousin, the Archduke Ferdinand III, Grand Duke of Tuscany, the son of Leopold II and Maria Ludovica.  The painting is by Vigée Le Brun (well, who else), and is in the Museo di Capodimonte.  The Vigée Le Brun portrait of Maria Teresa you are perhaps thinking of is this one:



(There are several versions).

[CountessKate]

I think Leopold and Maria Ludovica went directly from Innsbruck to Florence and stayed there with only trips to neighboring Italian areas for 25 years.

I note that when the Englishwoman Lady Mary Coke visited Vienna in 170, both the 'Great' Duke and Duchess of Tuscany were also there on a visit, so certainly trips to neighboring Italian areas was by no means the only excursions the couple made in 25 years (and yet another occasion on which Maria Ludovica would have met her brother-in-law Joseph).  Lady Mary observed Maria Ludovica at the opera (she could not be presented as her court clothes were not completed, and the Grand ducal couple left shortly afterwards for Tuscany) and reported that the "great Duchess is very plain".  (This presents an interesting addition to Maria Theresa's view of her daughter-in-law to the Electress of Saxony in 1768, a masterpiece of tact: "The Infanta has a dazzling complexion, with a lovely colour, clear blue eyes, and the most beautiful hair I have ever seen in my life.  She has a very fine figure, in a word, a charming young person, frank, and full of life and good spirits.  I am quite taken with her...." - a report which doesn't in fact contradict Lady Mary's later observation).  Lady Mary continued, "The great Duchess [Maria Ludovica] and L'Archiduchesse de Saxe [Marie Christine] Knotted all the time, but the ease & affection which seem'd among them all appear'd very particular to me, who come from a Country which is not so happy as to see any great harmony in the Royal Family......I heard that the Great Duchess had found in one of her Boxes that morning a very fine Knot of diamonds, a present from the Empress.......I heard the Great Duchess cry'd excessively at leaving the Empress.  You may guess how very amiable She must be to have all her Family adore her, even her Daughter in Law."  Lady Mary later fell out with Maria Theresa and when she visited Tuscany in 1773 and was formally presented to the "Great Duchess" she said she had been received "very civilly", though Sir Horace Mann, the British Resident in Florence, said Lady Mary had actually been received with "cold" civility, so perhaps Maria Ludovica's manner was warmer towards noble visitors who were not at odds with her mother-in-law.

[Gabriel Antonio]

Yes, she is the princess I was thinking of- although maybe in a version of the painting other than what you posted. Vigee Lebrun did several portraits of members of the Neapolitan Royal family when she visited Naples in 1790 and it is easy to confuse them.

I am sorry the year Lady Mary Coke visited Vienna came out as 170. I am trying to think of what year this was when she saw Maria Ludovica in Vienna- perhaps 1765 to 1766-  within the first year of her marriage to Leopold? Sources I have access to note the birthplaces of ML's children from 1767 to 1788 as always being in Tuscany.
Also, I think the young Elector of Saxony, Frederick Augustus III, may not have yet been married in 1768, (or was he?) so did Maria Theresa describe ML in a letter to the Elector's mother, the widowed Electress of Elector Frederick Christian? And, I am wondering if MT felt she had to be very tactful considering the fact ML's mother had been the sister of Elector Frederick Christian and her own daughter Maria Christina was married to their younger brother Albert. Also, wasn't MT considering a third marriage for Joseph with Princess Kunigunde, the youngest sister of this family?
It is so interesting to have the recollections of persons such as Lady Mary Coke as resources with their observations of the lives of royalty in the 18th century.