Portrait of the Duke of Berry

Portrait of the Duke of Berry is an oil on canvas portrait painting by the French artist François Gérard, from 1820.

Portrait of the Duke of Berry
Artist	François Gérard
Year	1820
Type	Oil on canvas, portrait painting
Dimensions	243 cm × 164 cm (96 in × 65 in)
Location	Palace of Versailles, Versailles

History and description

It depicts Charles Ferdinand, Duke of Berry, the second son of the future Charles X of France who was then Count of Artois.^[1] Berry was the nephew of the reigning monarch Louis XVIII, who had come to throne following the defeat of Napoleon's Empire.

A prominent figure of Restoration France, Berry was assassinated by a Bonapartist Louis Pierre Louvel the year of the painting. Stabbed and mortally wounded while leaving the opera in Paris, he died the following day. Eight months after his death, his Italian wife Marie-Caroline gave birth to a son Henry, Duke of Bordeaux who seemingly secured the succession of the House of Bourbon for a further generation.^[2] In the event the family's rule ended when they were overthrown by the July Revolution in 1830.

Today the painting is in the collection of the Palace of Versailles outside Paris.^[3] It is featured in the 1821 painting The Duchess of Berry Presenting the Duke of Bordeaux by Charles-Nicolas Lafond. Gérard's colleague Alexandre Menjaud produced a work The Death of the Duke of Berry depicting Berry's deathbed scene which is also now at Versailles.^[4]

See also

• The Death of the Duke of Berry, an 1824 painting by Alexandre Menjaud
• Portrait of the Duchess of Berry, an 1825 painting of the Duke's wife by Thomas Lawrence