Marie Louise of Austria

Austrian Imperial Family (1834)

Marie Louise as a girl (after Isabey)

Fireworks in Paris celebrating her wedding with Napoleon (1810)

A pregnant Marie Louise hoping to give Napoleon a son ("L'heureux pressentiment")

The King of Rome asleep (1811, by Prud'hon)

Marie Louise, Empress of France (1812, by Lefévre)

Many interesting thoughts and reflexions are kept in Marie Louise's diaries

Parma Ducal Palace - Marie Louise's living room

General Neipperg (1875-1829), second husband of Marie Louise. He lost an eye fighting Napoleon's army, was then encharged with delicate diplomatic missions and was created Prime Minister of Parma after the Restoration

Albertina Montenuovo Sanvitale (1817-1867), daughter of Marie Louise and Neipperg

Guglielmo Montenuovo (1819-1895), son of Marie Louise and Neipperg.

Some of the Duchess' embroidery works

Embroidery pattern; Marie Louise had many hobbies, including gardening and fishing.

A landscape by Marie Louise; she left many appreciated landscapes, focusing on the Alpine landscapes she loved so much.

Pamina, "was it not for my husband and my children, I could only trust my dogs in the Court", Marie Louise said once.

Marie Louise in the 1840's (by Daffinger)

Count Bombelles (1785-1856), third husband of Marie Louise; escaped from France during the Revolution, he worked for Austria and later replaced Neipperg as Prime Minister of Parma.

Marie Louise was an Austrian arch-duchess, first born of Emperor Francis II (later Francis I); she was eighteen when her father and his Chancellor Metternich agreed to her wedding with their arch-enemy Napoleon, whom she considered to be a "monster". Though a political marriage, their first years together were quite happy and blessed with a son; when Bonaparte was forced to abdicate, his family suggested that Marie Louise and the child went to Vienna: they would have never come back to France again.

The Congress of Vienna assigned her the Duchy of Parma, where she arrived in 1816; at that time she had just started a relationship with the Prime Minister of Parma, Count Neipperg, who was to became her morganatic husband soon after Napoleon's death; their two children, Albertina and Guglielmo, were not allowed to bear their father's surname, nonetheless they formed a united and happy, though unusual, family. Marie Louise had a third wedding, five years after Neipperg's death, with Count Bombelles, who was as well Minister of her State.

The Duchess remained in Parma for over thirty years, becoming a very popular sovereign thanks to her tolerant and caring attitude and her committment in the improvement of social and economical assetts, many of which are still in use nowadays; she was a talented and curious woman, keen on arts and music, literature and science, as well as fashion and embroidery - many evidences of her interests are displayed in the Museum. She died in Parma in 1847, but she asked to be buried near to her first son, whom she was forced to leave in Austria and died of thisis when he was only twenty-one.