A Portrait of Maria Theresa, Empress of Austria and Queen of Hungary, half-length, wearing a blue dress decorated with gold brocade and embellished with jewels and lace, together with an ermine-trimmed cloak, and the crown of Hungary resting on a velvet cushion beside her.

The indomitable matriarch of Europe. The presence of the Holy Crown of Hungary is significant as the Empress was crowned Queen of Hungary in 1741 and in the same year she made an emotional appeal to the Hungarian Diet pleading for support against King Frederick II of Prussia and the Elector Augustus III of Saxony. Her tearful tactic worked and the Hungarians swore to support her to the death.

Van Meytens was one of the Empress’s favourite court painters. Born in Stockholm in 1695, he travelled widely to London, Paris, Turin, and Rome, before arriving in Vienna in 1730.  As well as Maria Theresa and her husband, the Holy Roman Emperor Franz I, Meytens’ many royal and aristocratic sitters included the imperial family, and notably the Empress’s youngest daughter Maria Antonia, more famously known as Marie Antoinette after her marriage to the French Dauphin, which reversed the traditional enmity between France and Austria.  Van Meytens was appointed Director of the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts in 1759.  His noticeably hard-edged and exuberantly decorative style is the epitome of baroque portraiture in central Europe.