Nicaise de KEYSER (Antwerp 1813 - 1887) Portraits of Ferdinand Maximilien of Habsburg-Lorraine (1832-1867) and his wife Charlotte of Belgium (1840-1925), Emperor and Empress of Mexico, Pair of oval canvases, one on its original canvas, Original frames 95 x 75 cm (Old restorations) Signed and dated "NDe Keyser 1859"; one bears a 2004 restoration report on the reverse. Expert : Cabinet Turquin The paintings are on view with the expert and remain in Paris - no exhibition at the Clermont-Fd auction house. Born on July 6, 1832 at Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna, Ferdinand Maximilian of Habsburg-Lorraine was the son of Archduke Franz-Charles of Austria (1802-1878) and the younger brother of the future Franz-Joseph I of Austria-Hungary (1830-1916). After the Crimean War and the Treaty of Paris, he visited Belgium in 1856, particularly Antwerp. In Brussels, he met Charlotte of Belgium, daughter of King Leopold I of Belgium (1790-1865), who agreed to a marriage that would enable him to consolidate his dynasty through an alliance with the Habsburgs. The wedding took place on July 27, 1857 at the Royal Palace in Brussels. Our pair of portraits were taken shortly afterwards. Appointed viceroy of Lombardy-Venetia in 1857, Maximilian pursued a liberal policy to improve urban infrastructure, later hailed by the Count of Cavour. The Italian campaign of 1859, which saw Lombardy annexed by Victor-Emmanuel II of Sardinia, forced him to resign. The couple began their exile on the Dalmatian coast, cruising the Mediterranean, then Madeira. The Archduke then travelled alone to Brazil for scientific and ethnographic studies, following in the footsteps of Marie-Amélie of Brazil, his late fiancée. He visited Bahia, then Rio de Janeiro and finally Espírito Santo. He reunited with his wife in Funchal, Portugal, in 1860. Taking advantage of the American Civil War, which was bringing the United States to a standstill, Napoleon III sent the French army to fight the Mexican Republican forces. He imposed Maximilian as a candidate for the Mexican throne. Maximilien became Emperor of Mexico on April 10, 1864. Despite his liberal policies, he faced opposition from the south of the country, which did not recognize his authority. The assistance of the French expeditionary corps failed to restore the situation, which became untenable in the face of local hostility and pressure from the United States. While Empress Charlotte returned to Europe, Maximilian was arrested by his opponents and shot on 19 June 1867. This event gave rise to four famous paintings by Manet. Trained by the Van Brée brothers, Nicaise De Keyser was Antwerp's leading master of the mid-19th century. After studying in England, Italy and Paris, he embarked on an official career in Belgium, Holland, Munich and Sweden. His Salon paintings are in the Romantic style. In 1855, he was appointed professor and then director of the Antwerp Academy, succeeding Gustave Wappers. His large-scale compositions in praise of the Flemish painters adorn the Great Staircase of the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp. He became a recognized portraitist, and in 1856 was commissioned to depict Belgium's first king, Leopold I, and his wife Louise d'Orléans, daughter of Louis-Philippe. A year later, their daughter Charlotte commissioned his full-length effigy (1857, Antwerp City Hall). This is probably the context for our pair of portraits, typical of the mid-century international movement in the tradition of Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres and Paul Delaroche, and similar here to those by Ary Scheffer and Edouard Dubufe. A similar effigy can be found in Franz Xaver Winterhalter's 1865 Portrait of Maximilian as Emperor of Mexico, now in the Museo Nacional de Historia de Mexico.