Miniature portrait by Miss Marie-Thérèse de Noireterre (1760-1819), signed on lower right : Melle de Noireterre

As Marie Gabrielle Capet, Marie-Thérèse de Noireterre was a pupil of Adélaïde Labielle-Guiard.

Probably painted in 1788, for her wedding, this miniature give us the portrait of Marie-Anne Françoise Walsh, born in 1767. She passed away in London on February 23, 1801, in her 34th year, two weeks after the birth of her last child Edmond Robert de Certaines (1801-1873).

The lapel of the medallion preserves under glass a sheaf of hair and the significant dates of Marie-Anne, in red, happy dates, in black, sad ones. Below the date of her death in exile in London (23 February 1801), above in red, her marriage on  May 19, 1788, with the Marquis Pierre Constant de Certaines (1761-1831), Page de Madame la Dauphine, in the chapel of the Château de Serrant, at Saint-Georges-Sur-Loire.

Then, among the hair strands of her three children : left in black, August 1791 (child died), right in red, the birth of her daughter Adèle (A.10 May 1794), up the birth of her last son Edmond (February 9, 1801)

Enclosed in its original gold  English frame (since the Marchioness died in London), the precious medallion is preserved in its original red leather case, containing two union rings, bound and engraved (P.C. M is DE CERTAINES and M.A.F. WALCH ON 19 MAY 1788)  as well as a long braisd of hair.

About the De Certaines family : https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%C3%A2teau_de_Villemolin

About the Walsh family : http://htwww.ludowalsh.com/HTM/histoire_walsh.php