Marie-Louise O'Murphy

Resting Girl by François Boucher , 1751, Wallraf-Richartz Museum

Marie-Louise O'Murphy (born October 21, 1737 in Rouen , † December 11, 1814 in Paris ) was a courtesan and mistress of the French King Louis XV.

Life

She was the fifth daughter of an Irish ex-soldier who had settled in Rouen as a shoemaker. After his death, his mother moved with the children to Paris, where she worked as a used clothes dealer, while her daughters worked as actresses or models .

In 1751/52, when Marie-Louise was just 14, she was the nude model for François Boucher , who painted two oil paintings of her. The Wallraf-Richartz-Museum & Fondation Corboud in Cologne noted for his painting Resting Girl (Marie-Louise O'Murphy) : “The first pin-up girl.” Her beauty was noticed by a courtier who she was Louis XV. introduced. She became one of the king's mistresses and soon gave birth to an illegitimate daughter, Agathe Louise de Saint-Antoine (1754–1774). The General de Beaufranchet may also have come from the relationship, but this has never been proven beyond doubt. After being a mistress for two years, around 1754 she tried to oust the king's powerful favorite courtesan, Madame de Pompadour . She lost this power struggle, was married to a nobleman and removed from court. Although she subsequently found other lovers in the courtly environment, she never rose to her previous status.

Marie-Louise O'Murphy married Jacques de Beaufranchet in 1755 , with whom she had the son Louis Charles Antoine de Beaufranchet . In 1759 she married Francois Nicolas Le Normant and in 1798 finally married Louis-Philippe Dumont , 30 years her junior , who was a member of the Calvados department in the National Convention, from which she was divorced that same year. During the French Revolution she was briefly imprisoned because of her connection to the royal family.

novel

The life of Marie-Louise O'Murphy is the subject of the historical novel "The Irish Mistress" by Duncan Sprott , ISBN 3203820501 (1998).