Maria Theresa, Archduchess of Austria, Queen of Hungary and Bohemia, and Holy Roman Empress

Maria Theresa ruled the Habsburg Empire from 1740 until her death in 1780, presiding over one of the most demanding reigns in European history: fighting the War of the Austrian Succession, navigating the Seven Years' War, and reforming her state's administration and educational institutions while raising sixteen children. Liotard painted her in 1747 on copper—a small, precious support that produces images of exceptional detail and durability—when she was thirty, already a mother of several children and a hardened political operator. The Rijksmuseum's copper portrait captures the empress at a pivotal moment: she had survived the initial onslaught of European aggression against her inheritance and was consolidating her rule. Liotard's treatment of Maria Theresa across multiple portraits over many years forms a sustained documentary record of one of the century's greatest rulers, seen through the eyes of the most technically precise portraitist of the age.

Copper support allows for extraordinary miniaturist detail—Liotard exploits this to render every element of the empress's attire and facial features with a precision impossible on canvas at this scale. The smooth copper ground also creates unusual luminosity.