Princess Henrietta Anne Stuart, Duchess of Orléans, 1670 (oil on canvas)

Princess Henrietta Anne Stuart, Duchess of Orléans (Minette) (1644-1670). After (studio of) Jean Charles Nocret, the younger (1648 - 1691), inscribed with name of sitter, lower right: Henrietta-Mary / Dutchess of Orleans / ob.1670. A three-quarter-length portrait of a young woman, standing to left, wearing a richly jewelled dress, holding a portrait of her husband, a black boy and small spaniel at the left. The youngest daughter of Charles I and affectionately called 'Minette' by her brother, she married Philip, Duke of Orleans, brother of Louis XIV in 1661. This may be a version of the picture in Charles II's collection described as 'Maddam with her husband's picture in her hand and a little dog by her' and another copy version is at Temple Newsam, Leeds. Princess Henrietta had been smuggled to France by her governess after the imprisonment of her father, King Charles I. She grew up at the French court with her mother and became a favourite of the French royal family later facilitating a treaty between Louis XIV and her brother, King Charles II. But her marriage was not a happy one. Philippe, jealous of his flirtatious older brother, deprived his wife of any friends, leaving her isolated and lonely and her untimely death was intially blamed on poison, although autopsies revealed that she died of a punctured ulcer.