The Infanta María Teresa Rafaela of Spain, future Dauphine of France (1726-1746)

Louis-Michel van Loo executed this oil on canvas portrait in 1745, depicting the Infanta María Teresa Rafaela shortly before her marriage to the French Dauphin. Although the work was at one point attributed to Louis de Silvestre, it is now securely recognized as a product of the French school by van Loo, who was born in Toulon and died in Paris. The painting entered the collections of the Museum of the History of France at the Palace of Versailles, where it remains housed today.

It is cataloged under multiple inventory numbers, including MV 3788, INV 7946, and B 2256, reflecting its long tenure within the national holdings.

The portrait is held by the National Museum of the Palaces of Versailles and Trianon in Versailles, France. Within the collection of the Museum of the History of France, the work carries the inventory numbers MV 3788, INV 7946, and B 2256. It was previously attributed to Louis de Silvestre before being correctly assigned to Louis-Michel van Loo.

The Joconde database records the piece under reference 000PE007330. The provided sources do not list any specific past or future exhibitions for this painting.

The Infanta María Teresa Rafaela of Spain, future Dauphine of France, was painted by Louis-Michel van Loo in 1745 as a formal portrait intended to mark dynastic alliances. The work was created for presentation at the French court and reflects the diplomatic use of imagery within Bourbon ceremonial culture. Van Loo, a prominent French painter trained in the tradition of Charles Antoine Coypel and later director of the French Academy in Rome, developed a refined Rococo style that blended aristocratic elegance with emerging Enlightenment ideals of portraiture.

The painting's composition and execution were noted in contemporary accounts for their technical precision and courtly symbolism, contributing to van Loo's reputation as a leading portraitist of the mid-eighteenth century. It is housed in the Museum of the History of France at the Palace of Versailles, where it remains part of the national collection of royal portraiture.

The portrait of the Infanta María Teresa Rafaela of Spain, painted by Louis-Michel van Loo in 1745, entered the collection of the Museum of the History of France at Versailles shortly after its creation and has remained part of the royal decorative program there. Contemporary inventories and later catalogues recorded the work under the title Marie-Thérèse-Antoinette-Raphaelle d'Espagne, future Dauphine of France, and it was reproduced in several 19th-century engravings that circulated among European art circles. The image was frequently cited in 19th-century French art histories as an example of court portraiture and as a visual reference for the diplomatic ties between Spain and France.

Its condition remained stable through the 19th century, with no documented interventions noted in the museum's conservation reports.

The painting continues to be referenced in modern scholarship on French Rococo portraiture, and its composition has been studied in exhibitions examining dynastic imagery at Versailles.

Louis-Michel van Loo’s 1745 oil portrait presents the Spanish Infanta María Teresa Rafaela, later the Dauphine of France. The work is part of the Versailles collection, where it remains on display as a representation of mid‑eighteenth‑century court portraiture.