This life-sized marble bust of Marie-Amelie depicts her as a middle-aged woman with girlish curls. She wears a high headdress and a gown draped from high on her left should to low on right shoulder.
The Museum placard indicates that the 1841 work is by Baron Francois-Joseph Bosio and is a copy of an 1830 original at Versailles.
Wikipedia (
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"Maria Amalia of Naples and Sicily sometimes known as Maria Amalia of the Two Sicilies (Maria Amalia Teresa; 26 April 1782 – 24 March 1866) was a Princess of Naples and Sicily and later Queen consort of Louis Philippe I from 1830–48...
Maria Amalia was born on 26 April 1782 at the Caserta Palace just outside of Naples. Her father was King Ferdinand IV & III of Naples and Sicily (later Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies). Her mother was Ferdinand's wife, Maria Carolina of Austria, an Austrian archduchess and daughter of Francis I, Holy Roman Emperor and Empress Maria Theresa of Austria. Maria Carolina was a sister of the famous French queen Marie Antoinette. Maria Amalia's parents had a total of nine children, of which Maria Amalia was the seventh.
As a young Italian princess, she was educated in the Catholic tradition, which she appears to have taken to heart. Her mother, Maria Carolina, like her famous mother before her, Empress Maria Theresa, made an effort to be a part of her daughter's life, though she was cared for daily by her governess, Donna Vicenza Rizzi. As a child, Maria Amalia's mother and her aunt, Marie Antoinette, arranged for her to be engaged to Marie Antoinette's son, Louis Joseph, Dauphin of France, the future king of France, due to which, her mother encouraged her to remember that she would someday be his queen. Tragically, her young fiance died in 1789.
Maria Amelia faced chaos and upheaval from a young age. The death of her aunt Marie Antoinette during the French Revolution and her mother's subsequent dramatic actions emblazoned the event in the young girl's memory.[6] On the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789, the Neapolitan court was not hostile to the movement. When the French monarchy was abolished and her aunt and uncle were executed, Maria Amelia's parents joined the First Coalition against France in 1793. Although peace was made with France in 1796, by 1798 conflict again erupted and the royal family fled to the Kingdom of Sicily, leaving Naples on 21 December 1798 aboard the HMS Vanguard, a British Royal Navy vessel protected by two Neapolitan warships.
It was on board the warship that her younger brother Alberto died of exhaustion on Christmas Day, aged 6, in 1798. He was buried in Palermo soon after the family arrived there; his funeral was the first official engagement his family attended in Sicliy. She was forced to leave her homeland at the age of 18 and spent the next few years moving between various royal residences to escape turbulent times in Italy.
While in exile, she encountered her future husband, Louis Philippe d'Orléans, also forced from his home in France due to political complications of the French Revolution and the rise of Napoleon. Louis-Philippe's father, the previous Duke of Orléans, had been guillotined during the French Revolution, though he had advocated it in the early years.
The two were married in 1809, three years after they met in Italy, whereupon Marie-Amelie became the Duchess of Orléans. Marie-Amelie went to France with her new husband in 1814, where she attempted to make a home with her growing family, but with Napoleon's brief return, she was forced to flee yet again. Prior to her husband's rise to power, Maria Amalia and her husband had to cope with a persistent money problem due to the fact that they had no income aside from that which they were given by the English crown.
During the Orléans’ time in France prior to Louis-Philippe's coronation, the family lived in the Palais-Royal, which had been the home of Louis Philippe's father, the previous Duke of Orléans. Despite the monetary worries of the family, the house was returned to its original splendor at a cost to the couple of eleven million francs.
Tenure as Queen
In 1830, following what is known as the July Revolution, Louis-Philippe became king of France, with Maria Amalia as his consort and queen of the July Monarchy. Maria Amalia did not play an active role in politics and in fact made a concerted effort to remove herself from it.
Her Catholic faith did inspire her to give from their resources. In one instance, she responded to a request from French missionary sister Saint Mother Theodore Guerin of the Sisters of Providence of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods by saying, "Ah, yes, sisters, let us save souls!" She gave Guerin and her fellow Sister of Providence Mary Cecilia Bailly funds for their schools in the United States, as well as covered their travel expenses."