Carol I, King of Romania (1839-1914) portrait by George P. A. Healey, American artist
In 1874 the Paris-educated American artist Painter George Healey made several portraits of the Romanian Princely family of Hohenzollern - Princess Elsabeth of Wied (Carmen Sylva), Princess Consort of Carol I of Hohenzollern with her daughter and that of Prince Carol himself (seen above). Both of these portraits are in the collection of the National History Museum of Bucharest.
Prince Carol I (later to become King Carol I of Romania) was of German and French lineage, with both paternal and maternal grandmothers being French, namely Antoinette Murat and Stephanie de Beauharnais respectively, which made him a relation of emperor Napoleon III.
Educated at the Military Academy in Potsdam, upon hearing that young man was elected ruling Prince of the Romanian Principalities, in 1866, Chancellor Bismarck is reputed to have exclaimed; "Not a bad promotion for a Prussian officer". -He proved to be a great reforming statesman who pulled Romania from being a backward Ottoman province (up to its Independence in 1878) to becoming a modern European state, with a huge economic growth based on oil, agriculture, trade and rich mineral resources. This position made it possible for King Carol I to secure a commensurately appropriate marriage alliance for his heir to the throne Prince Ferdinand of Hohenzollern who married Marie of Edinburgh, Princess of Great Britain. Carol I was less successful in arranging the marriage of prince Carol of Romania (Marie and Ferdinand's son) to the Grand Duchess Olga of Russia, daughter of Tzar Nicholas Ii who perished with his family during the Bolshevik revolution.
The SITTER (source Wikipedia):
Carol I of Romania[1], original name Prince Karl Eitel Friedrich Zephyrinus Ludwig of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, later simply of Hohenzollern (April 20th, 1839 - 10 October [O.S. 27 September] 1914), German prince, was elected Domnitor (Prince) of Romania on April 20th, 1866, following the overthrow of Alexandru Ioan Cuza, and proclaimed king on March 26th 1881, with the acquiescence of the Porte and the Turkish Sultan whose armies were defeated in Roumania's 1877 Independence War with the Ottoman Empire by the Roumanian-Russian army under the command of Prince Charles I. He was, then, the first ruler of the Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen dynasty which would rule the country until the imposition of a Stalin-directed republic, dictated at gun point in a coup d'etat devised by Dr. Petru Groza whose government was backed up by the Soviet armies of occupation in 1947; this forced abdication (and later exile) of King Michael I of Roumania by his former Soviet allies occurred shortly after the soviet dictator Joseph (Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili) Stalin bestowed the Soviet Order of Victory upon King Michael I for his central role in the overturn of the Germans in Roumania in late August 1944.
The ARTIST (source Wikipedia):
George Peter Alexander Healy (July 15, 1813 - June 24, 1894), American painter, was born in Boston, Massachusetts.
Going to Europe in 1835 Healy studied under Baron Gros in Paris and in Rome. He received a third-class medal in Paris in 1840, and one of the second class in 1855, when he exhibited his "Franklin urging the claims of the American Colonies before Louis XVI."
Among his portraits of eminent men are those of Webster, Clay, Calhoun, Guyot, Seward, Louis Philippe, and the presidents of the United States from J. Q. Adams to Grant--this series being painted for the Corcoran Gallery, Washington, D.C..
His large group, Webster replying to Hayne, containing 180 portraits, is in Faneuil Hall, Boston, Mass. He was one of the most prolific and popular painters of his day. He died in Chicago, Illinois, on the 24th of June 1894.
