A PAIR OF LATE LOUIS XVI ORMOLU-MOUNTED AND WHITE MARBLE PORTRAIT MEDALLIONS

An identical pair of portrait silhouettes of the Emperor Franz (Franz I of Austria - 1768-1835) and his wife, Empress Maria Theresa (1772-1807), is in the James A. de Rothschild Collection at Waddesdon Manor, Buckinghamshire (T. Hodgkinson, The James A. de Rothschild Collection at Waddesdon Manor, Sculpture, London, 1970, nos. 44-5). As Hodgkinson concluded, the portraits probably date from 1792, when Franz I was appointed Emperor, as only then was he entitled to wear the insignia of Grand Master of the Order of Maria Theresa. Maria Theresa of Sicily was the Emperor's second wife, whom he married in 1790.