2-730-111 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Funeral for Marie-Thérèse of Spain, Dauphine of France, in the Church of Nôtre Dame, Paris, on November 24, 1746, c. 1746. As an official draftsman to the king, Cochin was responsible for documenting royal events, festivities, and ceremonies. When the Spanish princess Marie-Thérèse, wife of Louis XV’s eldest son, died in childbirth, she was given two lavish funerals: one at the Church of Saint Denis, and another, represented in this drawing, at Nôtre Dame in Paris. Cochin’s drawing shows how the interior of the gothic cathedral was theatrically redecorated in the current rococo style. Beneath the majestic canopy in the center of the nave, an ornate arched structure, a baldequin, contains the princess’s coffin.