Amélie of Leuchtenberg (1812–1873) was a French noblewoman and
Empress of Brazil as the wife of
Emperor Pedro I. She was the fourth child of
Eugène de Beauharnais and his wife
Princess Augusta of Bavaria. After the defeat of
Napoleon in 1814, her father, having been granted the title of
Duke of Leuchtenberg by his father-in-law, settled in
Munich. When Pedro's first wife,
Maria Leopoldina of Austria, died in 1826, he sent an ambassador to Europe to find him a second. Pedro's relatively poor reputation in Europe led to several refusals by princesses, and his union with Amélie resulted from a lowering of his strict conditions. They were married in 1829 and she moved to Brazil to be presented in court. Her husband
abdicated the throne in 1831 and the couple returned to Europe. Their daughter
Maria Amélia was born shortly after. Pedro died in 1834 and Amélie did not remarry, living the rest of her life in Portugal. This oil-on-canvas portrait of Amélie, produced in the 1830s by the German painter
Friedrich Dürck, is now in the
Soares dos Reis National Museum in
Porto, Portugal.
Painting credit: Friedrich Dürck
