Moritz Michael Daffinger (Austrian, 1790-1849)

The sitter was a German Noble from the ruling family of Courland and Semigallia and a sovereign Duchess of Sagan. She was the daughter of Peter von Biron, the last Duke of Courland and his third wife Dorothea von Medem (1761-1821). Wilhelmine fell in love with her mother’s lover, the Swedish General Gustav Armfelt, and their illegitimate daughter Adelaide Gustava Aspasia was born in Hamburg in 1801. Wilhelmine had to give her daughter up to one of Armfelt’s relatives in Sweden and never saw her again. Armfelt organised a marriage for her to Prince Louis de Rohan Guémenée but the marriage did not last and they were divorced in 1805. She married secondly Prince Vasily Troubetzkoy (1776-1841) but they divorced in 1806. A discovery of 600 love letters between Wilhelmine and Prince Klemens Metternich (1773-1859) revealed an affair between them and describes the political situation of the day leading up to the Congress of Vienna in 1814-1815. The affair did not last and Wilhelmine went on to marry Prince Karl Rudolf von der Schulenburg (1788-1856) but this too ended in divorce.