Henrietta of England called ‘Minette’ (1644–1670), sister of Charles II
(c. 1661)
Medium
oil on canvas
Measurements
127.2 × 105.6 cm
Credit Line
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Gift of Krystyna Campbell-Pretty AM and Family through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program, 2020
Gallery location
Not on display
About this work
In 1661, Monsieur Philippe Duc d’Orléans, King Louis XIV of France’s younger brother, married his first wife, Princess Henrietta of England. Known as ‘Minette’, Henrietta was Philippe’s first cousin, the daughter of Charles I, and had lived in France since the age of two. The couple had three children together before Minette’s early death in
1670 at the age of twenty-seven. Minette surely knew of Philippe’s sexual preference for men at the time of their marriage, and she is believed to have had affairs with other men herself. Louis XIV himself was rumoured to have fathered the couple’s first child.
Frame: French, seventeenth century, Louis XIII style, fitted to the
painting in 2024