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Hazel Home Art and Antiques Wausau, Wisconsin

Hazel Home Art and Antiques Wausau, Wisconsin

Tuesday, May 26, 2015

Pair of 17th century English miniature portraits by John Hoskins (1589-1664). The Duke of Buckingham and Henrietta Maria of France. Henrietta was queen consort of England, Scotland and Ireland as the wife of Charles I.

My neighbor Ginny's Antiques has some wonderful early decorative items. These miniature portraits may be historically important and valuable. We are awaiting a reply from Bonham's in London. They may be early 19th century copies. They are watercolor on vellum (thinly cut and stretched calf skin) Charles I had a quite colorful relationship.
and housed in a velvet lined leather case. The case is newer than the paintings and has a tag identifying the sitters. The case and collection tag appear to be late 19th century. The Duke and Queen and


Henrietta Maria was the youngest daughter of King Henry IV of France. She was born at the Palais du Louvre in 1609. Henrietta Maria was brought up as a Catholic. As daughter of the Bourbon king of France, she was a Fille de France and a member of the House of Bourbon. She was the youngest sister of the future King Louis XIII of France. Her father was assassinated on 14 May 1610, in Paris, before she was a year old.


When she was 13 years old she met  Charles I at a party in Paris. He had traveled to France with Lord Buckingham specifically to find a wife. He was all set to marry a Princess from Spain but changed his mind when he saw Henrietta. Two years later, when she was 15 they got married in Paris. She was a high tone Parisian through and through and took tons of expensive possessions and over 200 servants with her to London.


Henrietta's marriage to Charles did not begin well, and his ejection of her French staff did not improve it. Initially their relationship was frigid and argumentative, and Henrietta Maria took an immediate dislike to the Duke of Buckingham, the King's favorite. Favorite what? Was the question everyone was trying to figure out. Rumors of their homosexuality are debated by historians to this day.

In August 1628, however, Buckingham was assassinated, leaving a gap at the royal court. Henrietta's relationship with her husband promptly began to improve and the two forged deep bonds of love and affection, marked by various jokes played by Henrietta on Charles. Henrietta became pregnant for the first time in 1628, but lost her first child shortly after its birth in 1629, following a very difficult labour. In 1630, the future Charles II was born successfully, however, following another complicated childbirth by the noted physician Theodore de Mayerne. By now, Henrietta had effectively taken over Buckingham's role as Charles' closest friend and advisor. Despite the ejection of the French staff in 1626, Charles' court was heavily influenced by French society; French was usually used in preference to English, being considered a more polite language. Additionally, Charles would regularly write letters to Henrietta addressed "Dear Heart." These letters showcase the loving nature of their relationship. For example, on 11 January 1645 Charles wrote, "And dear Heart, thou canst not but be confident that there is no danger which I will not hazzard, or pains that I will not undergo, to enjoy the happiness of thy company"

Lots of different wars and fighting took place over the next bunch of years in both England and France. Charles and Henrietta moved back and forth several times. Finally in 1649 Charles was executed. This left Henrietta depressed and destitute.


In 1661, she returned to France and arranged for her youngest daughter, Henrietta to marry the Duke of Orléans, the only brother of Louis XIV. This significantly helped English relations with the French. After her daughter's wedding, Henrietta returned to England in 1662 accompanied by her son Charles II and her nephew Prince Rupert. She had intended to remain in England for the rest of her life, but by 1665 was suffering badly from bronchitis, which she blamed on the damp British weather. Henrietta travelled back to France the same year, taking residence at the Hôtel de la Bazinière, the present Hôtel de Chimay in Paris. In August 1669, she saw the birth of her granddaughter Anne Marie d'Orléans; Anne Marie was the maternal grandmother of Louis XV making Henrietta Maria an ancestor of most of today's royal families. Shortly afterwards, she died at the château de Colombes, near Paris, having taken an excessive quantity of opiates as a painkiller on the advice of Louis XIV's doctor, Antoine Vallot. She was buried in the French royal necropolis at the Basilica of St Denis, with her heart being placed in a silver casket and buried at her convent in Chaillot.(wiki)










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